Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

To the Congress of the United States:

I am pleased to transmit to the Congress this second annual report of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Endowment and its advisory group, the National Council of the Humanities, represent the first major step ever taken by the Government to support this broad and significant range of human knowledge and achievement. Their creation by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 brought national concern and support to a field where such encouragement was long overdue.

This Report describes the Endowment's initial year of full activity. It shows that during fiscal year 1966, the Endowment developed programs seeking the broadest possible use of the funds available. In fiscal year 1967, it awarded approximately $4.5 million to a total of 412 institutions and individuals in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

The awards included:

--Eighteen grants designed to stimulate public understanding and use of the humanities. These grants promoted innovations in the field of instructional television, and encouraged historical societies and museums to make their resources more broadly available.

--Twenty-eight awards to revitalize the teaching of the humanities at all levels.

--Eighty-one grants in support of research and publication designed to expand the development of scholarly resources in all fields of the humanities. These funds now support the first sustained effort to produce definitive editions of the works of great nineteenth-century American authors, from Emerson to Whitman, and contribute to such diverse and important projects as the publication of the letters of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, the training of young American archaeologists, and the first publication of the complete works of John Dewey, one of America's greatest philosophers.

--Two hundred and eighty-five fellowship awards, providing funds for a year of independent research for established scholars, six to eight months of uninterrupted study for the scholar-teacher, and summer stipends for younger scholars. Such projects and fellowships--representing only a small proportion of the many meritorious applications submitted--are proof that the Endowment has met enthusiastic acceptance by the scholarly community.

I commend this Report to the Congress, and urge early action to give the Endowment the resources we have requested to carry forward and expand its valuable work.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

February 1, 1968