Through humanities instruction, students can begin to understand their own culture by examining other cultures. From this examination, students may perceive that some values other than, or even contrary to, their own accepted ones offer meaning, purpose, validity, utility, and beauty. A review of the search for meaning through the humanities offers an opportunity to synthesize the diversities of human experience, rescuing it from such fragmentations as nationalism, elitism, fashion, and fad. While a humanities course may not be taught as a separate subject, it is a sound approach and a productive organizing principle in the language arts. Explorations of language and how it operates discloses keys to the content and manner of humanity, its infinite variety, and the legitimacy and functioning of that variety. Championing the integrative function of humanities, language arts teachers should join forces with teachers of other content areas to create a humanities context for teaching. (HOD)