Summerhill School
Leiston, SuffolkMy dear Reich,April 21 , 19 49Your letter brings up the old conflict we had in Oslo. You
say to get the whole sex question into the open. How? One parent
wrote that the police in C.'s case* hinted to parents that if they sent
their children back to his school, they might get their children taken
away from them as unfit parents to have children.
The dilemma is so. To say in a law court: "Yes, my adolescents can
have a love life together," would mean the closing of the school, and if
they were under 16 (the age of consent in law) the teacher would go to
prison. After the nine days' wonder the teacher and school would be
forgotten, and also many Zoes and Peters would have to go to more
or less anti-life schools. If questioned I'd want to say: "I have said and
written publicly that love should be free to children all the way from
the beginning. The pupils in my school know my attitude and they do
not consider sex sinful or smutty. They fall in love with each other in a
natural, tender way, and I never spy on them nor do I make any super
vision at all."
The dilemma was voiced last night by an old boy who is sending his
son next term, aged 4. He said: "All very well, Neill, to fight for ado
lescent love life, but I want my kid to have ten years of S'hill, and it
doesn't seem fair to risk being closed when the babies risk having no
S'hill freedom to go to."
Give me your opinion on the great dilemma... complete bravery
and honesty plus martyrdom and loss of work, OR conscious hypoc
risy, plus the chance to help a hundred or two Zoes. The dilemma would
be less urgent if I didn't think that martyrdom here would likely mean
no visa to try freedom in any other land. Put it this way: in war to be
taken prisoner means that you are out of the battle. If S'hill were
ended, on what front could I fight?
Do give me your answers.
- ••
* Copping, the headmaster who had had his schoolboys beat the cane merchant
with his own canes.