National Identity.

As inhabitants of a new nation, Americans faced a particularly daunting task. Devoting much of their energy and most of their resources to survival, they had little time or money for cultural pursuits. As John Adams put it in 1780, "It is not indeed the fine Arts, which our Country requires. The Usefull, the mechanic Arts, are those which We have occasion for in a young Country." He added that "the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts.—I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy . . . in order to give their children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine." While Adams and many other Americans believed that the nation had to establish...