Statement by the Secretary 



tant. But increasingly, all of society, not just traditional 

 elites, look to museums and similar organizations to recog- 

 nize values, to represent permanence in a changing world, 

 and in general just to sort out what matters. 



This process has proven particularly vitalizing for many 

 of America's ethnic communities. The Museum of African 

 American History in Detroit has become a crucial institu- 

 tion in the life of its community. The United States 

 Holocaust Memorial Museum has pioneered a way to sort 

 out one of the darkest chapters in human existence, not only 

 for the Jewish community but for the nation as a whole. And 

 the Japanese American Narional Museum in Los Angeles has 

 defined for its community and the world at large the nature 

 of the Japanese American experience. 



Many in the museum world are embracing a new notion 

 of public service that is proactive. Increasingly the argument 

 is being made that museums must demonstrate their useful- 

 ness to their communities. It is no longer enough ro simply 

 represent the good and the beautiful. In a speech earlier rhis 

 year, my Smirhsonian colleague, Srephen Weil, imagined at 

 least some of the goals museums must aspire ro: 



Museums can provide forms of public service that are all 

 but infinite in their variety. Museums can inspire indi- 

 vidual achievement in the arts and in science, they can 

 serve to strengrhen family and other personal ties, they 

 can help communities to achieve and maintain social 

 stability, they can act as advocates or play the role of 

 mediator, they can inspire respect for the natural envi- 

 ronment, they can generate self-respect and mutual 

 respect, they can provide safe environments for self- 

 exploration and ever so much more. 



Seeing museums as not only passive environments for in- 

 spirarion bur acrual problem solvers for American society 

 is a new and exciting approach. Sometimes the goals are 

 quite targeted. I noticed recently, for example, that the Drug 

 Enforcement Administration has just created what amounts 

 to a museum on addiction to show the terrible costs of a 

 national blight and the straregies used to combat it. 



But goals for museums can be very broad in scope as well. 

 My own hope for the Smithsonian, and particularly for its 

 National Museum of American History, is that it can play 

 some part in healing some of the fractures in our social frame- 

 work, in creating an inclusive sense of national identity in the 

 new century. That may, in fact, be our mosr imporrant rask. 



I had the opportunity to make this point in the presence 

 of President and Mrs. Clinton at a ceremony launching our 

 effort to conserve the Star-Spangled Banner: 



We at the Smithsonian recognize our roles as cusro- 

 dians of our most loved national treasures. Bur we see 

 as an extension of that responsibility our obligation to 

 provide a national place where the many communities 

 of America can learn abour each orher and honor each 

 other's past and present. We are bound together as a 

 people not in uniformity but in shared hope and, if we 

 get it right, mutual respect. 



There is one sphere of public service for which the value of 

 museums is just beginning to be understood — that of public 

 education. We understand, of course, that museums have 

 long had an important role in what is called informal educa- 

 tion. They are, after all, places to discover and to learn about 

 the world. But the emerging museum of the future, which 

 takes its educational responsibilities seriously, will find itself 

 more and more a full participant in classroom education. As 

 I described in my 1997 reporr, this responsibility goes be- 

 yond the important task of providing materials that are 

 useful to teachers. The Smithsonian, as I mentioned, in the 

 fall of 1996 forged a partnership with the District of Colum- 

 bia Public Schools to establish two Museum Magnet Schools, 

 one elementary and one middle school. Students in these 

 schools collect, study, and interpret objects to learn science, 

 art, and geography, among other subjects. Like the curators 

 they resemble, the young people conduct research and rhen 

 choose ways to communicate their discoveries to others. 



Often it is the private sector that has shown us how to rein- 

 vent our educational involvement. I am particularly intrigued 

 by the recent partnership between our National Museum of 

 Natural History and Voyager Expanded Learning, Inc., to 

 create after-school and summer programs that enrich and en- 

 liven the educational experience. A particular favorite of mine 

 is the four-week Smithsonian T-Rex program that involves 

 such hands-on experience as the casting of dinosaur teeth to 

 separate fact from fantasy under the guidance of scientists. 



Equally exciting is our own Smithsonian Early Enrichment 

 Center for preschoolers. Immersed in object-based education, 

 these three- and four-year-olds are exceeding expected 

 achievement in all areas. Two thirds of rhe cenrer's preschool- 

 ers score in the 99th percentile in nationally normed science 

 tests upon completion of the program. That's exciting by any 

 standards and gives museums the hope of making a difference 

 in ways we did not even suspect a decade ago. 



That's the good news. But we need also to examine the 

 challenges and uncertainties that museums face in the future. 

 Challenges, of course, can lead to opportunities for reinven- 

 tion, but we have to be aware of them and intelligent in our 

 response. 



Because museums have so many responsibilities and are 

 the focus of so many expectations, the pressures on staff and 

 directors to clarify what it is they do and how to manage and 

 increase their resources are growing at an incredible rate. We 

 used to think of the ideal director of a museum as a profes- 

 sional risen from the ranks of one of its key scholarly fields, 

 but now directors must deal with issues of management, 

 fund-raising, and political interaction unimaginable in qui- 

 eter days. Take the questions of corporate sponsorship or the 

 launching of business ventures. Each entails risks to an insti- 

 tution that values its integrity, but the risks can be handled, I 

 think, and are ourweighed by benefits. Taking on these new 

 challenges represents a new way of thinking that incorporares 

 ideas of true partnership with the private sector, involving 

 straregies for using the marketplace without going down 

 pathways that conflict or seem to conflict with our mission. 



There's another challenge to be met, one that also creates its 

 fair share of worry among my colleagues. It is the increasing 



