Just returned from lecturing to a Teachers Training College in
Birmingham with 350 students. Awful Stimmung [atmosphere] there;
staff all religious and they attacked me for two hours on religion. I came
away depressed, for they mean EDUCATION and power over millions
of kids. And all I got for talking for three hours was £5 ... 20$ plus
train travel of 14 hours.
No sign yet of govt. inspection of S'hill. Since inspectors will have
the mentality of the Training College staff I feel very uncomfortable
about it.
Zoe always a delight, but we both worry about her having no chance
of good sex play. In the train I read part of a book on Oedipus, giving
a synopsis of Freud's ideas. It struck me that much of Freud's theories
about babies are just wrong, for instance, a baby's attitude to father's
penis and mother's envy of boys' penes seems to me to be based
solely on a family with authority. Indeed all Freud's Rea/Wits Prinzip
[reality principle] seems to be based on the family as it is now. Castra
tion seems to Freud to be a normal fear in every boy, but will it be in
Peter? Will Zoe fantasy that someone has cut her penis off? Oh, I wish I
could talk instead of write to you.
I have slowly come to feel that if your world ever comes, people will
read about castration and incest and anal eroticism as we read about
witchcraft. I have forgotten much of my Freud but this book seems to
make him consider sadism a normal part of sex, which is absurd.
- I •
Forest Hills, New York
April 12 , 1949
My dear Neill:
The problem of how to go about organizing and training
teachers in our field becomes more urgent with every passing day. It is
of life-importance that the self-regulatory principles of education should
become teachable, so that they can be transmitted from generation to
generation. I am planning to hold a preliminary conference of American
educators to clear the rubble off the field of survey. Would you be will
ing to hold a similar preliminary conference in England concerning the
development of the healthy child? I would like to stress the necessity of
shifting the emphasis from the handling of sick children to the handling
of healthy children in our environment. We could then proceed to the