An aesthetically educated person may be understood to subscribe to values and possess dispositions that in important respects are distinctive. The respects in which such values and dispositions are unique and the methods by which they might be developed are, however, subject to interpretation. This article provides brief summaries of three generative thinkers (Friedrich Schiller; Herbert Read; and John Dewey) that indicate a line of argument can be traced from the writings of Plato in antiquity to Schiller's ideas in the eighteenth century lo those of Herbert Read and John Dewey in the twentieth century. Recent developments, contemporary movements toward aesthetic education, contemporary theorists, environmental and natural aesthetics and aesthetic education, and aesthetic dimensions of education are analyzed through an extensive literature review. This article draws attention to the viability of the idea of aesthetic education and to present the questions and issues it poses for policymaking. It concludes what is promising at the beginning of a new century is the presence of features in the contemporary theoretical landscape that suggest continuing discussion about the meaning and nature of aesthetic education. This article is adapted from The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education, Elliot Eisner and Michael Day (eds.) [c] 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission. (Contains 14 endnotes.)