The Founders and the Idea of a National University
Constituting the American Mind

This book examines the ideas of the Founders with regard to establishing a national university.

George Thomas (Author)

9781107443884, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 August 2017

251 pages
23 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'Thomas challenges scholars not only to think deeply about civic education's historically uncertain place in American constitutionalism, but also the implications of that history for the present moment.' Journal of the Early Republic

This book examines the ideas of the Founders with regard to establishing a national university and what those ideas say about their understanding of America. It offers the first study on the idea of a national university and how the Founders understood it as an important feature in an educational system that would sustain the American experiment in democracy. Their ideas about education suggest that shaping the American mind is essential to the success of the Constitution and that this is something that future generations would need to continue to do.

Introduction
1. The national-university vision and American constitutionalism
2. The national university and constitutional limits
3. The national university and state institutions
4. Constituting the university
5. Education, the national university, and constituting national identity
6. The civic dimensions of American constitutionalism
Conclusion: the Constitution and the American mind.

Subject Areas: Government powers [LNDH], History of ideas [JFCX], History of the Americas [HBJK]