تحدث كتاب التربية عن طريق الفن عن الفن والجمال، التربية وعلم النفس، فهو يسعى إلى استنكاه مفهوم الفن وماهية الجمال ويبحث في البواعث النفسية التي تدفع الإنسان إلى الإحساس بالجمال وتذوقه ثم التعبير عنه بالفرشاة أو القلم أو النقمة، وذلك للإجابة على التساؤل: هل في الإمكان أن يكون في كل إنسان منا بذرة فنان، فإذا ما تعهدها بالتربية وبالرعاية صقلاً وتهذيباً جاءت على الدنيا بيكاسو جديد أو شكسبير جديد أو موزار جديد؟ وما الدور الذي ينبغي أن تلعبه التربية وما الاتجاه الذي تستطيع أن تتبعه لكي تقوم بدورها في هذا المنحى.
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (1893 - 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Politically, Read considered himself an anarchist, albeit in the English quietist tradition of Edward Carpenter and William Morris.
Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art & the publisher and editor-in-chief of Jung's collected works in English.
On 11 November 1985, Read was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.
He was the father of the well-known writer Piers Paul Read, the BBC documentary maker John Read, the BBC producer and executive Tom Read, and the art historian Ben Read.
Outstanding! Read argues for a pedagogy which would require a complete transformation of our educational institutions: one that holds at it's core the integration of sense perception and logic / what is felt and experienced to what is known. It is, Read would argue, our system of authoritarian education, which seeks to mold each individual into an ideal of character that is predetermined by society which keeps individuals disintegrated, fragmented and at worst neurotic.
Part pedagogical critique, part developmental psychology, "Education Through Art" is a priceless text for parents, teachers, child/adolescent therapists (anyone who works with or is interested in the raising up of young people).