Personal

Abstract

When I last saw him A. S. Neill was lamenting the fact that student‐teachers to whom he talked were absorbed, like previous generations, with the purely technical problems of the classroom rather than the ‘love’ of children. As we sat sipping his Scotch in one of Summerhill's rather depressingly dilapidated rooms Neill's comments showed a certain sad preoccupation with thoughts of failure. I hastened to suggest that, far from failing, his ideas of freedom and understanding had made their mark and that, whether all teachers realized it or not, State primary schools owe a great deal of their success to Neillist concepts. But the revered old saint was not to be placated. Neill is very much an all‐or‐nothing man and any school which is less free than Summerhill is not, in his book, offering children what they need.