Freedom-Not License!

By A. S. Neill

A. S. Neill, the now-renowned headmaster of the Summerhill School in England, has received hundreds of letters from correspondents in the United States re­questing advice about their specific problems in child rearing. With his uncommon wisdom and in his unique, forthright style, Neill proffers answers.

There are chapters here about sibling rivalry, homosexuality, eating habits, the fearful child, censor­ship, homework, and nudity in the home, children of the divorced, and about other vital topics which either directly or obliquely affect the home life of the Amer­ican child.

This penetrating volume will be read and re-read, and quoted again and again. It is sure to excite con­troversial discussion.

The title epitomizes Neill’s Summerhillian philos­ophy. Every child is entitled to freedom; an excess of freedom constitutes license. Freedom deals with the rights of the child; license constitutes trespassing on the rights of others. Neill explains how and where the line is drawn between these two.

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

EDWIN MARKHAM

What This Book Is About

How can one distinguish between freedom and license?

My publisher in the U. S. A. implores me to write a whole book in explanation of these terms, saying, “You must, for so many American parents who have read summerhill feel guilty about the strict way they have treated their child, and then tell their child that from now on he is free. The result is usually a spoiled brat, for the parents have scant notion of what freedom is. They do not realize that freedom is a give and take—freedom for parents as well as freedom for the child. As I understand it, freedom does not mean that the child can do everything he wants to do, nor have everything he wants to have.”

Yes, that simply stated, is the crux of the matter. Free­dom, over-extended, turns into license.

I define license as interfering with another’s freedom. For example, in my school a child is free to go to lessons or stay away from lessons because that is his own affair, but he is not free to play a trumpet when others want to study or sleep.

When I was in America, I would have an occasion, now and then, to visit a professor or a doctor. When I ar­rived his wife and children might be in the room. The chil­dren remained and monopolized the conversation.

When an American visitor came to visit me at Summerhill today, three children were in my room. “Come on, lads.” I said, “buzz off. I want to talk to this visitor.” And off they went without a murmur.

Of course, the principle would have applied the other way around, too. My pupils have often told me to clear out when they wanted privacy—when rehearsing a play, for example.

Every child is selfish—Me first! Parents must appre­ciate and accept that stage for what it is; at the same time, they must refuse to give Junior the licence to do every­thing he wants to do.

A proper answer is “Yes, Bobby, you may use my car tools to fix your bike, but you have got to put the tools back in the car trunk when you are finished with them.” That answer may spell discipline to you—maybe it is dis­cipline—but for me it is just life’s give and take.

How can children develop self-control if they are never restrained from doing whatever they want to do? is a ques­tion I am often asked.

But who ever advocated a child’s always doing what he wants to do? I certainly never did. Junior can decide what he doesn’t want to do. For example, study Latin. But he is not free to choose to play cops and robbers in father’s car.

What is the true definition of self-control? Is it just good manners, like curbing your profanities when you are golfing with the Baptist minister? No, in my opinion self-control means the ability to think of other people, to re­spect the rights of other people.

No self-controlled man ever sits down with others and helps himself to half the salad in the salad bowl.

According to anecdote, Frank Harris once boasted that he had dined at the best houses in London, “Yes, Frank,” said Oscar Wilde, “once!”

In my book summerhill, I pointed out that “It is this distinction between freedom and license that many parents cannot grasp. In the disciplined home, the children have no rights. In the spoiled home, they have all the rights. The proper home is one in which children and adults have equal rights.”

Since the publication of summerhill in 1960, I have received hundreds of letters from all over the world from parents and from children. Most of these letters have come from the United States. By and large, the questions revert to the fundamentals of freedom in the home. This hook pre­sents excerpts from some of these letters and the salient passages of my replies.

The reader will find that I have nothing to say now that is dramatically new. The principles upon which the Summerhill School is based, the fundamentals of my methods of handling children, have been stated by me in full in my book summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. What one will find here is an extension of that philosophy— the application of Summerhill principles to the specific situ­ations that constantly arise in the American home.