Thanks to a 2004 law authored by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., every American school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17 (the date the document was adopted, in 1787), or the closest school day available.

Needless to say, the edict has brought some whimpering.

Dan Fuller, director of federal programs for the National School Boards Association, told The Associated Press last year that such dictates interrupt regular lessons on other subjects. (Global warming, perhaps? Recycling? Multiculturalism?) "We don't need the federal micromanagement," he said. "Congress has been acting more like a school board. ... Local schools cover the Constitution, and they've been doing it for a long time."

It would be nice to think so.

The problem is that old paintings of fellows in funny stockings and waistcoats make the Constitution seem a dry and dusty subject, of little concern in an era of DVDs and rocket ships.

The Constitution represents a great compromise. It erected a stronger central government than that which had prevailed under the Articles of Confederation, but it promised a skeptical nation -- one that had just spent a long and difficult decade throwing off the reins of King George --that the powers of that government would be sharply limited.

Delineating and thereby limiting the powers of the central government is, in fact, the main function of the founding document.

Is it accomplishing that task today? A government under the U.S. Constitution, to paraphrase columnist Joseph Sobran, would be a radical improvement over the one we have today.

Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of the book "More Liberty Means Less Government" is a mighty defender of the Constitution. "Let's examine just a few statements by the framers to see just how much faith and allegiance today's Americans give to the U.S. Constitution," Mr. Williams suggests. "James Madison is the acknowledged father of the Constitution. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief for French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison said disapprovingly, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.'

"Today, at least two-thirds of a $2.5 trillion federal budget is spent on 'objects of benevolence.' That includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to higher education, farm and business subsidies, welfare, etc., ad nauseam. ...

"Constitutionally ignorant people might argue that the Constitution's 'general welfare' clause justifies today's actions by Congress," Mr. Williams submits. "Here's what James Madison said: 'If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.' Thomas Jefferson echoed, in a letter to Pennsylvania Rep. Albert Gallatin, 'Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.' "

It would be wonderful to see the U.S. Constitution taught in the public schools. But is such a course of education really under way?