Eidelberg on diversity, tolerance, and patriotism

In A Discourse on Statesmanship Eidelberg describes how the American Founding Father James Madison (whom Eidelberg rates very highly) favoured the establishment of a political orthodoxy centered around a standardized curriculum at institutions of higher learning, as a means of uniting the new, somewhat "multicultural" American republic.

Returning to Madison . . . it may be thought inconsistent of him to want to cultivate a political orthodoxy on the one hand, and "liberal sentiments" on the other. But Madison believed he understood the true principles of republican government and that these were embodied in the text he proposed for the University of Virginia's School of Politics. To imbue students with those principles would be to inculcate genuine patriotism, not national chauvinism. Properly understood, patriotism means a concern for the common good, a love of one's own people, their traditions, their institutions, their great men, their noble purposes. True patriotism is rooted in gratitude for the blessings which the past has bestowed upon the present . . . . CONTINUE