So long as arts programs restrict themselves to teaching skills of expression, they will not be considered necessary for anyone save prospective artists. The challenge is to produce a curriculum for all students in aesthetic impression--the cultivation of imagery and imagination. Aesthetic perception skills qualify as basic. (Author/SJL)

The case for the inclusion of aesthetic education with the traditional basic courses of reading, writing, and arithmetic is examined. The following points are emphasized in regarding arts education as a basic: (1) Aesthetic experience is basic because it is a primary form of experience on which all cognition, judgment, and action depend. It is the…