Howard Gardner. The Arts and Human Development: A Psychological Study of the Artistic Process. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973, 395 pages, $12.95 (emphasis on the development of creativity in the child)

The Arts and Human Development is a comprehensive investigation of the steps children go through in acquiring the roles of creator, performer, audience participant, and critic in the field of literature, music, and the visual arts. Although these art forms have only a tangential relationship to the dance, this well-written book should have great interest to all researchers in the arts, since it presents an overall theory of artistic development as well as giving precise and detailed suggestions how the methods of developmental psychology can help resolve many vexing problems in the arts, such as the difference between art and science, the inter-relationships among the arts, the relationship between technical skills and aesthetic perception, the question why many prodigies never develop further and why other children go on to become great artists, and the important issue of the role of aesthetic education in developing the unique characteristics of the human spirit.