1800s American Idealism and a Mania for Institutions

In the early 1800s, shortly after newly opened territories were opened for settlement, people in the United States went on a bender of ideological and religious experimentation of various kinds. Several towns and cities and colleges in Ohio, for example, were basically founded by religious leaders (aka cult leaders). While today we associate religious zeolots with socially conservative ideas, many of those 19th century Christian groups espoused what we think of today as progressive ideas.

They also went on a bender of creating institutions and groups that sought to put ideals into practice, which really meant that they wanted to legislate and regulate individuals and engineer "a people". It's not surprising they turned to the Prussian Education system as a model for schools in the United States since they were trying to "solve" a similar problem, that is engineer a unified country from many disparate groups and individuals.

The progressives then and now tend to focus on groups and institutions like corporations rather than individual's pursuing his own goals or following a particular path toward understanding.