The problems that face us are complex, and so are the solutions. We cannot address the issues of our day with sound bites and slogans. We will only progress through deliberate, thoughtful debate, which will inform action with integrity.
Earlier this month, we paid tribute to the life and legacy of Senator Claiborne Pell, one of the most influential statesmen in recent history and Rhode Island's own. From the smallest state in the nation, one of our country's brightest shining lights.
Former President Bill Clinton called Senator Pell's life and legacy "his last true Pell Grant" to our country. Indeed, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the many gifts the Senator Pell gave us to ensure and protect a true and vibrant democracy. In difficult times, we are reminded of the responsibilites our democracy require of us.
The 1965 Act that established the NEH called upon us to support broad public "access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants."
For the past 40 years, the 56 independent affiliates of NEH have been at work in our states and territories, creating and sustaining public programs that allow ordinary citizens opportunities for thoughtful, informed conversation about the issues that affect our lives.
In Rhode Island, the Council for the Humanities has provoked and inspired discussion on a wide range of topics---from our state's role in the transatlantic slave trade to the history of apple orchards in Rhode Island. From our work ith the Providence Police Academy to the Learning Community Charter School; Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island to VSA Arts---what guides us is the conviction that the humanities not only enrich our lives, but their study actually enables us to better sustain ourselves in our communities.
As a society , our beliefs and ideals are our most powerful and transformative resources. In the words of another visionary Rhode Islanders, Barnaby C. Keeney, "Our relations to one another as individuals and to our society are determined by what we know and what we think. Our use of knowledge is inseperable from our ability to express it in words and shapes. Only through the best ideas and the best teaching can we cope with the problems that surround us and the opportunities that lie beyond these problems."
In order to envision and enact the opportunities that lie beyond these problems, we must invest in strengthening the humanities. We must keep the humanities broadly and widely accessible through support of state humanities councils and of the National Endowment. In do doing, we not only honor the legacy of our own Senator Pell, but also we honor ourselves and our own capacity to imagine a better future.
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