Birthdays stimulate reflection. Adding a year to our age causes many of us to reflect on the past and contemplate the future. In short, birthdays help us ascertain our place in the world.

For nations, it’s more about establishing a place in history.

As the United States prepares to mark its 236th birthday on Wednesday, where does this nation fit in the annals of human history?

From the preamble of the Constitution to blogs being posted at the same time you read this, American thinkers have addressed the point — with varying degrees of success.

In an 1897 essay titled “Five American Contributions to Civilization,” then-Harvard University President Charles William Eliot listed “the abandonment of war as the means of settling disputes between nations … religious toleration, the development of manhood suffrage, the welcoming of newcomers and the diffusion of well-being” as the then 121- year-old nation’s claims to lasting fame.

To be polite, ensuing events undermine Eliot’s arguments, as evidenced by the fact that conflicts over militarism, the relationship between church and state, access to the ballot box, immigration and health care dominate political and cultural discourse in 2012.

In a 1959 commentary in Atlantic magazine, another Harvard man, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., shared his top 10 list of U.S. contributions to civilization. Other than a mention of technology at No. 10, Schlesinger’s list tilts sharply toward political advancements, including accomplishments he describes as “the right of revolution,” “the consent of the governed” “federalism” and “the melting pot.”

Schlesinger also credits this country with establishing a universally accessible public school system. To ensure that citizens used their votes intelligently, Schlesinger wrote, “statesmen agreed that society must at its own initiative and expense supply the means of schooling.”

Emulated by other nations to the point that their students’ academic achievements now often surpass ours, the U.S. public school system remains a source of pride, albeit one that faces historic challenges as it seeks “the consent of the governed” to ensure its sustained excellence amid heightened global and private competition.

In Ken Burns’ 1994 film history of baseball, essayist and cultural commentator Gerard Early said, “There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, jazz music and baseball. These are the three most beautiful things this culture’s ever created.”

We would add sending humans safely to and from the moon as a singularly American achievement of great historic note. Aside from the sheer grandeur of that triumph, so many of the technological advances that have shaped society during the past four decades originated either directly or inspirationally from the lunar mission.

For balance, taking stock of our nation’s place in history should include contemplation of our shortcomings. But listing historic failures at this juncture would constitute a birthday buzz kill unbecoming of a national holiday.

So, to acknowledge our ongoing need for improvement on an upbeat note, we turn to Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French aristocrat who wrote “Democracy in America” after touring the country during the early 1830s.

His assessment of a still new nation less than 50 years after its birth continues to offer hope and guidance as we plunge into year 237 of our effort to create a “more perfect union:” “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

May those words ever be true.