It is my hope that during the coming years the new Administration and the Congress will:
--Continue support of institutions promoting development and understanding of the arts;
--Encourage business participants in a comprehensive effort to achieve a truly mixed economy of support for the arts;
--Explore a variety of mechanisms to nurture the creative talent of our citizens and build audiences for their work;
--Support strong, active National Endowments for the Arts;
--Seek greater recognition for the rich cultural tradition of the nation’s minorities;
--Provide grants for the arts in low-income neighborhoods.
THE HUMANITIES
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.