Educating the Republic: the Founders’ Provisional Civic Curriculum

Abstract

The American Revolution established a political system grounded in popular sovereignty, raising new questions about the education citizens needed to govern themselves. If republican government depended upon the knowledge and judgment of the people, early American thinkers had to consider what subjects citizens should study to sustain the new republic. This thesis argues that the writings of the founding generation reveal a recurring set of civic subjects: history, the science of government, law, natural and moral philosophy, and the disciplined use of Americanized English. Together these subjects form what may be understood as a provisional civic curriculum for republican self-government. Although no formal national curriculum was adopted, these subjects appear repeatedly across educational proposals, essays, institutional plans, and political writings from the colonial era through the early republic. By examining both prominent founders and lesser-known reformers, this study reconstructs the curricular ideas early Americans believed necessary for sustaining republican government.