The question of the relation between liberal education and political liberty, perennially important, is driven for this forum by the Obama administration's endorsement of "A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future," according to which the chief ends of postsecondary civic education ought to include the promotion of sweeping egalitarianism, progressive activism, and cosmopolitanism. In its guidelines for addressing this issue, "Academic Questions" offers contributors a dichotomy between the "university as a "temple of science," where rival theories, perspectives, and preferences receive a rigorous and impartial testing," versus "A Crucible Moment"'s promotion "of a particular political view." The guidelines go on to distinguish the vision behind the "scientific university" from that underpinning institutions that carry "ideological and philosophic commitments." Keen to the dangers attending this dichotomy, "Academic Questions" also offers contributors the option of defending instead a "'mixed regime'--part science, part commitment." In this article, the author describes an account that suggests the ineffectiveness of seeking to combat "A Crucible Moment" while simultaneously employing the assumptions embedded in the language of the science-commitment dichotomy. To offer a better civics, the author suggests that one needs at least to begin with an attempt to understand the American Founders as they understood themselves. The Founders wrote before the rise of positivism, historical relativism, and the progressive Left. Questioning them on their own terms is the first, though not the last, requirement of scientific integrity. (Contains 2 footnotes.)