(Not printed at Government expense)

   

Con

qressional Recor

 

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 87% CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION

 

 

Progress in the Arts and Humanities Is Essential
to True National Strength

SPEECH
or

HON. JOHN E. FOGARTY

OF RHODE ISLAND
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Tuesday, July 17, 1962

Mr. FOGARTY. Mr. Speaker,. there
is a pressing need today for Federal leg-
islation that will build up nationwide
support for the arts and humanities, on
a basis comparable to the support that is
provided in other areas, such as science
and technology. Progress in the arts
and humanities is essential to true na-
tional strength. As Barnaby C. Keen-
ey, president of Brown University re-
cently commented:

The whole shape of our lives in the future,
and our whole attitude toward life, will be
strongly formed by our achievements, or,
worse still, by the lack of them, in the arts
and humanities.

Moreover, our leading scientists are
among the first to agree that our society
faces great dangers by neglecting its
cultural resources in our total educa-
tional effort.

Evidence is accumulating that interest
in the arts is rapidly increasing and is
becoming more widespread among all our
people at all ages. However, our ca-
pacity to satisfy public demands is not
keeping pace with this development.
The arts need basis support that is sim-
ply not provided by ticket sales and other
forms of income. We are dealing here

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with something that is vital to society
which cannot sustain itself without help.

Today we are confronted with some
strange paradoxes. On the one hand
culture is flourishing, and on the other
it is declining. Original paintings are
now found in more American homes than
ever before, and some paintings are
bringing the highest prices in history;
yet an artist can hardly make a living
and the enrollment in art schools is
steadily falling off. Museum attend-
ance is breaking all records everywhere;
yet every year museums are having more
trouble finding the funds to cover op~
erating expenses.

The field covered by the term “the
arts and humanities,” is large but clear-
ly definable. Broadly speaking, it is cul-
ture. The arts can quickly be broken
down into the performing and nonper-
forming arts, and include such areas as
architecture, ballet, opera, the theater,
drawing, painting, poetry, music, and
sculpture. The humanities consist of
the languages, creative writing philos-
ophy and history. In my discussion,
however, I am including libraries, uni-
versities, museums and all such centers
that traditionally have been the homes
for the arts and the humanities.

Among the performing arts, whether
it be a symphony orchestra, chorus,
quartet, ballet, opera, or drama, attend-
ance has almost tripled in the past 10
years. Last year alone, there were more
paid admissions to these cultural per-
formances than to baseball.and basket-
kall games. Yet the increase in ticket
sales did not produce enough income to
cover production costs.

Quite obviously, if we are to bring
about progress on a national scale,
among all public and private agencies
alike, we must call upon our Federal
Government to pave the way with lead-
ership and support.

Indeed we are witnessing a renaissance
in culture today. The arts are no longer
viewed by the majority as frivolous and
meant only for the aristocracy. Music
and painting, even ballet, are now among
the normal interests of our people. The
arts are claimed by everybody today,
whether it be a prizefighter, a taxi driver,
a movie star, a college professor, or a
wealthy patron. As many of us know,
the presence or absence of cultural op-
portunities is often crucial in the cor-
poration’s decision as to where it will
locate its new plant.

Universities are increasing their at-
tention to the arts and giving them a
more prominent place. Also, they are
actively encouraging their communities
to join with them in learning more about
art and the appreciation of it. Even the
universities which were slowest to recog-
nize the place of the arts, now have
artists in residence on the sound theory
that the professional can best convey
reality through his art and at the same
time inspire the strdent. Such institu-
tions as the Universities of Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and California, as well as
Yale and Princeton, have liberalized
their curriculum by giving the arts a
more prominent place; but it is im-
portant to note that even so specialized
a school as the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology has done likewise, in order
to produce a well-rounded person. Some
institutions literally brought the local
community into the cultural life of the
campus. An example of this develop-

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ment is Wayne State University with its
famous “Detroit Adventure.”

Another new development is the arts
center, or arts council, as it is called.
While the two are not exactly synony-
mous, they both represent the systematic
organizing of the arts into one broad
program, whether on the level of a com-
munity, a region, or a State. The first
and only State to have an advisory coun-
cil on the arts is New York State. New
York is leading the way with a tremen-
dous success, and other States are getting
ready to follow.

It is sad to say that our schools do
not, in enough instances, keep up with
this interest in the arts. In the first
place, teachers are not sufficiently
trained, and many of them are atiempt-
ing to teach the arts without having the
broad cultural background and creative
imagination which this field demands.
It is important that our children have
developed within them standards of value
so that they can discriminate between
the mediocre and the excellent.

The secondary school years are per-
haps the only time in their lives that
they can acquire this judgment, this ex-
perience that comes from discipline.
There are many problems, such as a uni-
form provision in our schools through-
out the country for identifying and en-
couraging talent. A greater realization
must be fostered that the potential
school dropout can have his entire future
changed for the better by just the right
kind of introduction to the world of the
arts.

We talk a great deal about physical
fitness programs; we should also set up
cultural fitness programs. Our schools
need to recognize uniformly that music
and art are beth significant in the edu-
cation of every student. All these needs,
and many more, impinge upon the ade-
quacy of teacher training. We need to
improve this training for greater excel-
lence and professional competence in the
arts and humanities. Also, we need to
create in the teaching profession the
incentive of a good salary and thus at-
tract young people of superior ability
to the profession.

Progress in this direction has been too
slow and not in keeping with the condi-
tions of the times.

Likewise in the field of education, we
need to find the ways of producing the
best trained artist possible and not only
to encourage him in such a career but
actually help him to achieve an artistic
career that will also provide a good
living. We need to attract more talented
students to this field by setting up spe-
cial programs of financial aid. The
number of graduate students in the arts
and humanities areas has declined to a
dangerously low level.

Enrollment in art schools and music
schools has steadily declined; and it was
recently announced by the American
Historical Association that there will not
be enough Ph. D.’s in history alone to
meet the needs of higher education in
1964. Education is becoming more
costly, and in too many cases parents
have exhausted their personal resources
in supporting their children during the
years of their undergraduate education.

Rising costs have pushed the student
who has humanistic talents into the
place where he must chose a field that
costs less to master and which in the
end offers a better living wage. In fact,
our potential artists are told not to be
artists. This is the reason that good
violinists, able composers, great artists
and outstanding scholars in the humani-
ties are scarce in the United States to-
day. This is a crucial and pressing
problem. We have permitted these
people to be priced out of the picture.
Unless we act fast, our great American
tradition of originality and creativity in
these areas will be gone.

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The way to attack this problem is to
undergird the development, the preser-
vation and extension of our cultural re-
sources through our educational systems
and institutions. The Office of Educa-
tion already has several programs aimed
at the support of the arts and humani-
ties. But these programs need to be
strengthened and expanded. Its pro-
gram of library services represents a tre-
mendous breakthrough in the field of
culture broadly; but we have only
scratched the surface of meeting the ex-
panding needs of our society for modern
library services and materials.

However, the problems I have alluded
to, and which I will explain and describe
more fully, which are threats to the very
existence of a healthy cultural life in the
United States today, cannot be solved
only through strengthened and expanded
programs in the traditional areas of ed-
ucation. The support provided now for
the student and teacher will not ma-
terialize at once into solutions for many
of our cultural problems, because these
problems demand immediate attention
also.

The Office of Education has revamped
its organization, under the leadership of
Commissioner Sterling McMurrin, and is
in a strategic position to discharge what
is really the Federal Government’s duty,
at long last, in recognizing and encourag-
ing, with the help of State and local
organizations, the demonstrated fact
that our people all across this country
have a genuine thirst for a richer cul-
tural life. And what could be more nai-
ural? This country has now come of
age; it has reached a maturity where the
arts and the humanities must be de-
veloped as spiritual resources and can
be given their proper place along with
the material advantages we have been at
great pains to promote and perfect for
the past several generations.
 

John Adams described this maturing
process, in fact predicted it, when: he
wrote:

The useful, the mechanic arts are those
which we have an occasion for in a young
country. * * * I must study politics and
war that my sons may have liberty to study
mathematics and philosophy * * * in order
to give their children the right to study
painting, poetry, music, architecture, statu-
ary, tapestry, and porcelain.

In other words, the arts.

The success of any college or uni-
versity program in the arts and humani-
ties is dependent on its library, because
the library is a vital part of higher edu-
cation. Libraries are in trouble these
days. In most cases they have not grown
as the universities have grown. Li-
braries need funds to expand their fa-
cilities just to keep up with ever-expand-
ing college enrollments. The sheer in-
crease in the size of bodies and faculties
places a growing burden on the library.
At the present time we have over 2,000
institutions of higher learning, yet it is
reliably estimated that no more than 100
of these have adequate library facilities.
Most libraries are so inadequate, even
so unsuitable in their present condition,
that they actually hamper efforts to
furnish the books, periodicals and the
various staff services; they simply can-
not make the proper contribution to the
instructional and research programs of
the institutions they are meant to serve.
Certainly the need for improvement in
the library situation is urgent in every
part of our land.

We are now witnessing the emergence
of arts centers and arts councils that are
springing up everywhere on the com-
munity, regional, and State level. These
new organizations are performing func-
tions that are actually supplemental, and
closely related to, the work done by the
schools. Universities are looking for
ways to finance special. honors centers
for the training of talented undergrad-

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uates and scholars seeking opportunities
for independent study and research in
the arts and humanities.

Related to the arts councils and the
arts centers is a much older institution
that is performing valued service to our
schools and colleges.

I refer to the museum. Today there
are many types of museums. There are
art museums, history museums, science
museums, aquariums, arboretums, plane-
tariums, zoos, archives, historical socie-
ties, historic houses and many other
types. One thing they all have in com-
mon is the fact that they serve a most
important public purpose. Some of
them are primarily centers for research,
but all of them are educaticnal insti-
tutions.

In i910, — hew museum was being
formed at an average rate of one every
2weeks. By 1961, the rate had increased
to one every 4 days. The reason for
this increase was the growing desire on
the part of our people to preserve ob-
jects and aspects of their disappearing
past. Also, people began to discover a
new pleasure in studying displays of
these items. In response to this pub-
lic interest, museums began to offer edu-
cational services never before included in
their work. They developed new tech-
niques of display that often rivaled the
eye-catching character of those found
in our best department stores.

Instead of showing individual objects
in glass show cases, with labels that were
usually difficult to read, or even without
any labels whatever, objects were now
related to one another, as for example in
a simulated room interior; atmospheric
illusion was created, as in a habitat
grouping of animals against their native
settings. New materials, clever lighting
effects and carefully studied labels were
among the new concerns that took the
emphasis off the mere collecting and
preserving and put it on education. All
this, when well done, attracted growing
numbers of appreciative people.

It soon became clear that the muse-
um and the textbook went hand in hand
because the display was an absorbing,
even at times an exciting, illustration
for the school textbook. The next nat-
ural step was taken when the museum
curator collaborated with the school-
teacher in guided tours and scheduled
lectures which made his specialized
knowledge available for sharper focus
and deeper meaning to the day’s les-
son. The trip to the museum now had
a serious purpose and it has become
standard practice in most of our city
schools as part of the new method of
teaching.

Public schools and colleges are offer-
ing eredit for the specialized knowledge
and demonstrations which can be found
only in our better museums. It has be-
come common practice for our tradi-
tional educational institutions to ar-
range with some of our various museums
in a kind of hands-across-the-border
relationship, a precise program for the
best pooling of their resources. By 1966,
79 percent of our museums were offering
formal education programs. In this re-
spect, historical societies and historic
houses led all other types of museums;
but museums of all types in our larger
cities are now operating as supplemen-
tal and closely allied units of the local
schools and colleges.

One of the best known examples of
this kind of partnership in teaching and
learning is the higher horizons program
of the New York City Board of Educa-
tion. In addition to whatever educa-
tional work museums are doing, we need
to recognize that many of them, such as
archives and museums of science and
art, and those that are highly special-
ized, in various other fields are reposi-
tories of some of the most important
knowledge we possess.

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wa

We should formally recognize muse-
ums as the educational institutions
which, in fact, they are.

Since the majority of our people, all
across this great Nation, feel that the
cultural arts are necessary to the kind
of living they want, then the arts and
humanities should be in a very healthy
condition. The fact is they are not.
Their condition would be healthy if some
factors were in better adjustment. For
example, salaries are much too low and
income is too precarious to attract the
able people this field must have. The
latest figures issued by the American
Federation of Musicians show that in
1960 the average player in one of our
26 major symphonies was employed only
27 weeks that year and he earned a mere
$3,900 before taxes.

Nobody can live decently on that in-
come. These musicians therefore had to
play their instruments elsewhere to earn
extra income which, in a sense, is per-
haps reasonable enough; but when we
read that 30 percent of these people
could not find other employment as mu-
sicians and had to work at whatever
part-time jobs they could find, with some
ef them filling in as night clerks in
hotels, lifeguards, postal clerks, watch-
men, and janitors, we can only conclude
that the condition of the arts is not as
heaithy and responsive to public demand
as it should be.

We all know that teachers’ salaries are
much too low to provide in this field the
kind of incentive it must have to assure
a good education for our young people.
We have just seen how our schools are
turning to museums for supplementary
help in educating both our youth and
our adults, yet when we look at the sal-
ary range of $4,000 to $6,000 paid to a
museum curator, we cannot in all rea-
son expect this kind of educational col-
laboration to continue. ‘
Hither we recognize that the Federal
Government join with State and. local
governments, as well as with private or-
ganizations, to provide substantial as-
sistance or we can expect nothing short
of crisis ahead of us. The arts and hu-
manities have always had an important
place in our liberal arts area of educa-
tion. I submit that the evidence I have
given shows clearly that this area is not
merely threatened, it has already de-
teriorated. It is time we recognized this
fact.

To make the ferment that is now go-
ing on in the arts and humanities an
effective expression of national culture,
nationwide surveys are required to estab-
lish facts and determine patterns and
trends. Arrangements would have to be
made, through clearinghouse processes
and group discussions. Also, we need a
continuous cross-fertilization of ideas
and knowledge, an exchange of both ex-
perience and experiment on a regional
basis, as well as on national and inter-
national levels. I am predicting that if
these things could be done, the way
would be opened up to bring a wider and
deeper richness of life almost literally to
every home in this great country.
Forces of creativity, imagination, and en-
lightenment would be unleashed as never
before. As we contemplate the very
prospect of it, there lies before us an
opportunity to make this nothing less
than a national goal.

Once, in the age of kings, painting,
music, drama, and literature were all
considered the very essentials that made
up a successful nation, and heads of state
vied for the honor of endowing them.
By some strange reasoning I do not un-
derstand, these noble realms of human
expression, these treasures that identi-
fied the abode of the Greek muses, and
which have throughout history been
given the special favor of kings, in this
country have been left to fend for them-

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selves.. Now, today, this. Nation needs
them as never before. We have reached
the point in our development where we
must add to the laurels we have won as
a nation of wealth and power these at-
tributes of the spirit which are expressed
in the arts and humanities.

Therefore, I am today introducing a
bill which provides for the creation of a
new National Institute for the Arts and
Humanities within the Office of Educa-
tion which would have as its function
the stimulation and support of educa-
tional and cultural activities on a broad
scale. Obviously, the programs of the
Federal Government in this area must
be approached with a sensitivity to na-
tional exigencies, on the one hand, and
with the responsibilities of local and
private agencies, on the other. My bill
calls for a Federal Advisory Council on
the Arts and Humanities which will pro-
vide advice on areas of Federal support
and will identify critical needs to the
Commissioner of Education and to the
Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare.

To summarize the principal ways in
which the arts and humanities will be
advanced, the iegislation provides for
the following:

First. Authority to conduct broad in-
vestigations of studies of national needs
in the arts and humanities in order to
clearly establish areas for Federal stim-
ulation and support.

Second. The creation of a Cultural
Service Center to perform functions
analogous to a national clearinghouse
of information on all aspects of culture,
with responsibility to disseminate this
information and provide leadership and
assistance.

Third. Creation of a major research
and demonstration program within the
Federal Government to stimulate new
approaches and new techniques for the
creative application of the arts and hu-
manities throughout our society.
Fourth. Establish a fellowship and
training program for teachers and
talented students in the arts and
humanities.

Fifth. Provide matching grants for the
expansion and improvement of arts and

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humanities projects conducted by public
and nonprofit agencies.

Sixth. Cooperation with State and lo-
cal agencies in the development of lead-
ership programs for the schools, colleges,
and cultural institutions.

U.S, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE:1962