Art for art's sake

RE "Art's power to teach 21st-century skills" by Lisa Guisbond (Op-ed, Dec. 8): Arts educators already know that an arts education develops "collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication." Let us not forget, however, that an arts education is valuable for its own sake. The arts meet the universal need for aesthetic beauty that marks all civilizations. Eliminating the arts, or considering the arts as secondary to other subjects, subverts the very best we can offer our children. Life without beauty is merely existence.

Eileen Soskin
Head of school
Walnut Hill School for the Arts
Natick