William Ferris, Gr'69, is chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He received a Ph.D. in folklore from Penn. A prolific author and scholar of the American South, he is founder of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he was a professor of anthropology. The following is from a speech he delivered to Penn's Board of Trustees on February 18, 1999.

There is a new awareness of the importance of the humanities. Across the country, I find people, inside the universities and outside, who sense the need for a grounding in our history, our philosophy, our literature--in all the things that give our lives meaning beyond material achievement and a faster lifestyle. As things speed up, as the computer takes over our lives more and more, we feel a desire to know the lasting values in our society.

At the same time, we are confronted with a public uneasiness about what the humanities really are, and really do, and how they affect the lives of everyday Americans. In such an environment, it is more important than ever that we open the windows of academe to the outside world. We must engage the general public and create vehicles of outreach to the communities around us. That is precisely what we are doing at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and what the Penn Humanities Forum will do.

The humanities are the intellectual air we breath, the cultural sea we swim in, the spiritual matrix that makes our lives different from that of machines or beasts. Robert Penn Warren once said, "a fish doesn't think much about water," and the same could be said about our relationship to the humanities. We don't think much about them--until they're not there.

In my travels around the country, one thing has become clear: the future of the humanities is the public humanities. The public humanities are those which reach average Americans. The survival of the humanitarian tradition depends on how successfully we can step outside our intellectual towers and reach the widest possible public. King Lear and Huckleberry Finn must have meaning for the kids in West Philadelphia and for grown-ups on Wall Street. They must be accessible to everyone, whether through computers or through street theater.

For the public outreach of any humanities program to have meaning, it must be based on rigorous academic standards and research. You know that an enlightened citizenry and an educated work force are the bedrock of competitiveness in today's fluid, international business climate. We cannot expect to win the economic and cultural battles of the 21st century if we neglect education and the humanities.

One of Penn's trustees, Richard L. Fisher, C'63, G'67, has made the case for us. Mr. Fisher did his graduate work at Penn in playwriting, but he does not write plays today; he writes deals in the New York real estate market. Mr. Fisher told Wendy Steiner that what he learned about language and clarity of thought as a humanities student at Penn played a large role in his business success. And he looks for the same qualities in the young people he hires.

G. K. Chesterton said that education is "the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." It is our soul that we need to be concerned about as we enter a new century. If we beggar our culture, we will surely lose the battle for what William Faulkner called "the agony and sweat of the human spirit."

By supporting the Penn Humanities Forum, you are stating your commitment to a future that is not ruled only by bits and bytes. You share with us a vision of a future embedded in the humanitarian traditions that have nurtured our democracy and defined our purpose since our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in 1776. With that kind of commitment, the work of the human spirit will go on and help define the world we leave our children.