Summerhill School
Festiniog, North Wales

My dear Reich,

1945

January 13, 1945

We seem sadly enough to be drifting apart on what are funda­
mental questions. Let me try to be elementary about this marriage
business. I think you will agree that there are certain outer forms that
we "respect" when we don't believe in them. I see no use for royalty,
but when the band plays "God Save the King" in the theatre I stand up
with the rest. On the street I sometimes raise my hat to a woman I don't
like nor respect. In short, one has not the time and energy to protest
against everything one disapproves of. We all try to keep from com­
promising on the big things while we compromise on the minor matters.
To me the big thing in life is my work, and I shall compromise always
enough to keep that work from being stopped. If an enemy wrote to the
Ministry of Education saying that a head of a school was "living in sin"
I think that his work would be in great danger of suppression. You
rightly say that a certificate in itself does not constitute a marriage.
but your idea of a marriage or my idea is a Nebensache [minor matter]
when those in power have the right to kill our work. And my work is
not primarily sex reform; it is work with children from ages of 4 and 5
upwards to adolescence. The new Education Act is making Private
Schools come under the State, to be inspected and closed if inefficient.
The other day the Education Minister in a speech said: "If a head of a
private school were a drunkard we should close his school." He might
have said: "If the head of a school is an immoral man, etc."
What you say about marriage I agree with, of course. When I wrote

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