Bring Virtue Back for the Next Generation

As America turns 250, it’s good to remember how young our country is. Let’s be patient with our new generation of Americans.

C.H. Howard | June 27, 2026

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

—John Adams's letter to the Massachusetts Militia, 1798

As we approach our country’s 250th anniversary, the Adams quote above remains an enduring summary of what the Founders envisioned for We the People.  Yet the long march through our institutions has sought to produce a different kind of people, characterized by President Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

As a professor at a small American college, I can attest to the fruits of this effort.  In my less optimistic moments, I observe my students doom-scrolling before class and struggling to read (or pronounce) Plato and Descartes in class.  When they do engage, it is to correct Aquinas or Mill with what they have been told that Marx and Nietzsche said (as opposed to what they actually said).  The bottom line of our Social Contract — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — is pop-cultured into “I’m right, I get liberty, and you do, too, if you agree with me.”

Okay, that’s a bit of a hasty generalization.  In some cases, students submit truly engaging, non-A.I. essays in which they express a genuine desire to do better but struggle to do so.  In a word, they want virtue but........

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