Selections from “A Treatise on Parents and Children” by George Bernard Shaw (vegetarian): Art Teaching, Part 1 of 2

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856. By the time he was a young man, he was already writing literary critiques for music and theater. Shaw wrote several novels, and then turned to playwriting and essays. George Bernard Shaw became a monumental literary and political figure, writing over 50 plays. He was also an influential writer for the Fabian Society, an organization committed to social reform. In 1925, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and later, an Academy Award for his adapted screenplay of the script for Pygmalion.

Shaw’s noble actions were highlighted by Supreme Master Ching Hai during an interview with “The Irish Dog Journal” in 2009. “People are not aware because nearly all of it, all of this inhumane treatment of animals takes place behind windowless walls where no one can see. We’re not even allowed to see it, yes? So, the renowned Irish playwright and Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw had said, 'I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals.' You see, the ones who are aware, they don’t touch meat. Just like when we are aware, we switch completely.”

Today we are going to present to you “Art Teaching,” from “A Treatise on Parents and Children,” a collection of essays about various topics between children and parents.

“I am simply calling attention to the fact that fine art is the only teacher except torture. I have already pointed out that nobody, except under threat of torture, can read a schoolbook. The reason is that a schoolbook is not a work of art. Similarly, you cannot listen to a lesson or a sermon unless the teacher or the preacher is an artist.”

“Worse, we dread and persecute those who can see and declare the truth, because their sincerity and insight reflects on our delusion and blindness.”

“In short, there is a vast body of art now within the reach of everybody. The difficulty is that this art, which alone can educate us in grace of body and soul, and which alone can make the history of the past live for us or the hope of the future shine for us, which is the appointed vehicle of inspiration and the method of the communion of saints, is actually branded as sinful among us because, wherever it arises, there is resistance to tyranny, breaking of fetters, and the breath of freedom.”