In recently reauthorizing Federal appropriations for the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the Congress has once again reaffirmed that "the
encouragement and support of national progress and scholarship in the
humanities . . . while primarily a matter for private and local initiative,
is also an appropriate matter of concern to the Federal Government" and
that "a high civilization must not limit its efforts to science and
technology alone but must give full value and support to the other great
branches of man's scholarly and cultural activity in order to achieve a
better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a
better view of the future."
I believe we are in agreement that the humanities illuminate the values
underlying important personal, social, and national questions raised in our
society by its multiple links to and increasing dependence on technology,
and by the diverse heritage of our many regions and ethnic groups. The
humanities cast light on the broad issue of the role in a society of men
and women of imagination and energy--those individuals who through their
own example define "the spirit of the age," and in so doing move nations.
Our Government's support for the humanities, within the framework laid down
by the Congress, is a recognition of their essential nourishment of the
life of the mind and vital enrichment of our national life.
I will be proposing an increase in funding this year sufficient to enable
the Endowment to maintain the same level of support offered our citizens in
Fiscal Year 1981.
In the allocation of this funding, special emphasis will be given to:
--Humanities education in the nation's schools, in response to the great
needs that have arisen in this area;
--Scholarly research designed to increase our understanding of the
cultures, traditions, and historical forces at work in other nations and in
our own;
--Drawing attention to the physical disintegration of the raw material of
our cultural heritage--books, manuscripts, periodicals, and other
documents--and to the development of techniques to prevent the destruction
and to preserve those materials; and
--The dissemination of quality programming in the humanities to
increasingly large American audiences through the use of radio and
television.
The dominant effort in the Endowment's expenditures will be a commitment to
strengthen and promulgate scholarly excellence and achievement in work in
the humanities in our schools, colleges, universities, libraries, museums
and other cultural institutions, as well as in the work of individual
scholars or collaborative groups engaged in advanced research in the
humanities.
In making its grants the Endowment will increase its emphasis on techniques
which stimulate support for the humanities from non-Federal sources, in
order to reinforce our tradition of private philanthropy in this field, and
to insure and expand the financial viability of our cultural institutions
and life.