Letter: Without arts, we cheat society

To the editor:

[On Andy Brack’s column about Marjory Wentworth’s poem] I whole heartedly agree.

In New Jersey where I spend a good part of each year, we did a study through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (I was an appointed member for seven years) to try and understand how much revenue the arts brought to the state. The results were astonishing because they were huge but the study also took other businesses into consideration — electricians, plumbers, printing, parking lots, dry cleaners, restaurants — on and on the list goes.All of these businesses thrive because of the arts.

Arts in curriculum have a positive effect raising academic test scores — visual arts and the theater reflect the times and teach history. Music lifts the spirits but also offers a more keen understanding of mathematics. As a practical matter, when there is a presence of institutions devoted to the arts in a community, it is a more desirable place to live.

It is so terrible to cheat our society of all the wonderful things the arts can bring. They enrich us in so many ways. I don’t understand why Governor [Nikki] Haley can’t or won’t find time for Marjory Wentworth to read her poem.

South Carolina has such a terrible reputation for its domestic violence numbers and its horrific problem with animal abuse. Surely, the reading of a poem at her inauguration would help our residents rise above its shame. Even if it’s only for 140 seconds.

Thank you for reporting this.

— Dorothea Frank, Sullivan’s Island, S.C