I’m working through David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, which really is as good as everyone builds it up to be. McCullough offers this gem when introducing Benjamin Franklin [p. 80]:

It was Franklin also who had led the way in establishing the American Philosophical Society, “for the promoting of useful knowledge,” with the result that Philadelphia had become the center of American thought and ideas.

Sure enough, an introductory page from the first publication (1771) of the monograph series “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society” stated the society’s goal:

The Promoting of useful Knowledge in general, and such branches thereof in particular… being the express purpose for which the American Philosophical Society was instituted; the publication of such curious and useful Papers as may, from time to time, be communicated to them, becomes of course, one material part of their design.

The second clause of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, seems to mirror this language relatively closely:

The Congress shall have the power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

This is hardly unequivocal proof, but this turn of phrase wasn’t in either the Statute of Anne (“An act for the encouragement of learning”) or the English 1624 Statute of Monopolies (“An act concerning monopolies and dispensations with penal laws and the forfeiture thereof”).

The construction also isn’t found in the other formulations suggested by Madison and Pickney for the clause. See Malla Pollack, What is Congress Supposed to Promote?: Defining “Progress” in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, or Introducing The Progress Clause, 80 Neb. L. Rev. (2002):

• Madison:
• • “To grant to literary authors their copy rights for a limited time”
  • “To encourage by premiums & provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and of discoveries.”
• Pinkney:
• • “To grant patents for useful inventions.”
  • “To secure to Authors exclusive rights for a limited time.”
  • “To establish seminaries for the promotion of literature and the arts & sciences.”
  • “To establish public institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, trades, and manufactures.”