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Hmm. I think they're doing some good, but get the impression they may be doing some harm as well. (I went to private schools, so perhaps my impression is less clear than that of someone who attended public school.) My hypothesis is that they'd do better at this goal if they were smaller. We'd lose economy-of-scale if we had many small schools instead of a few large ones, but we might also be able to avoid some of the problems I've heard so much about in our schools.

Though come to think of it, elementary schools are usually smaller than middle schools or high schools, and it seems a good chunk of the "cultural shaping" happens there.

Hmm. I'll have to look up the history and see what grades were included in what Webster was discussing. I wonder what differences there are between what folks were talking about then and what we've got now.

As for existing institutions for the cultivation of hearts ... Churches. Specifically churches and synagogues with a high degree of community participation (i.e. not ones where most of the congregation just shows up on Saturday or Sunday for service, but ones where the congregation is a community with a high degree of interaction throughout the week). Of course, those aren't state-sponsored, nor is there any guarantee that the cultural values they instill will be what the larger society outside would like to see. (I think such faith-communities mostly work out to everyone's advantage, but we all know of counterexamples ranging from "mere" propogation of bigotry and ignorance to full-blown cult behaviour.)

Other groups that seem to have the same function even if it's a secondary goal (and speaking as an outsider yet again) -- the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and Little League? Do any of those succeed?