Capitalizing after colons.

I would be as glad as James Briggs to know what is being taught in Amercian schools regarding the colon, punctuation generally, and the English language. The smallish children whom I have asked about it are so vague that I suspect English may be taught quite differently than in former days. To ask about spelling class, or handwriting class, is to provoke a blank stare. But I am ill-informed about this. I will say that insofar as I was taught anything about colons, it was that the normal punctuation of what followed the colon would usually prevail. If it introduced a formal list consisting of sentences, or a quotation, or a speech in a dialogue you would expect to see a capital letter. Usually you would (and do) expect to see lower-case, if that is what you would see after, say, a comma or semi-colon in that position. But US English, especially after 1963, is very tolerant, and I have seen plenty of capital letters following colons where I would not have expected to see them. SS

Current US usage (not as taught in schools or seen in newspapers or magazines, but as practiced by well-taught editors) is that a colon is followed by a lowercase letter in the normal course of events.

: *As in a list: colons, semi-colons, commas.*

: However, if the colon precedes a full sentence (e.g., a quote), then it is followed by an uppercase letter.

: *Here is what is meant by hegemony: The United States administration, as distinguished from its people, intends a "pax americana" enforceable by right.*