R.R. Tomlinson was a Senior Inspector of Art to the London County Council. The book was published in 1947, and the author starts by saying that the book's title would have been facetious one generation ago. He was referring to how most adults, even art educators, would have received children’s drawings and paints.

The Juvenile Art Classes opened in 1897 in Austria and lasted until the 1930s. The program of the classes was: "Let the children grow, develop and mature". Through William Viola's books on Cizek's methods, we learn about his practices and praise of what he considered the natural creative child. Just for the 'slogan' of the classes, we can see how the gardening practices of education informed his thought. Cizek was a traveling author through the works of art educators like Marion Richardson, R. R. Tomlinson, and Herbert Read.