Summerhill School
Leiston, Suffolk
My dear Reich,
February 10 , 19 50Thanks for your most cheering letter which I hope we can
discuss in person in August. The idea is of course fine, and the details
can be left until later. At the moment the question that occurs to me is:
When our self-regulated infants are nine or ten, where do they go then?
My chief difficulty would be to keep [from] shooting all the therapists
who wanted to come and therapise the children. It is fascinating to
dream of the possibilities of our being in charge of an Orgonon kinder
garten.
Apart from financial worries I see clearly that my interest in Summer
hill is less than it was when we were building it up, when every new child
was an interesting "case." Now that it is obvious that every problem
child is the same problem child in essentials, there is no fun in dealing
with children whose reactions to freedom one knows beforehand. The
more we have to raise the fees to make ends meet, the more we get the
children of the dull petty bourgeoisie who have no idea of how to use
freedom.
Just had a cable from Copenhagen from an ex-parent. CONFIDEN
TIALL Y I ASK YOU POSSIBILITY OF MOVING WHOLE SUMMERHILL SCHOOL
INCLUDING YOURSELF TO DENMARK AS AN INTERNATIONAL SCANDINAVIAN
SCHOOL GUARANTEED ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AND ECONOMY?
I replied no. A charming offer to be sure, aber [but] ...
New Bulletin to hand. I grasped at least something of your own article,
but can never follow you and never will be able to follow you into the
depths of orgone-energy-philosophy.
To go back to your Orgonon idea, I don't quite understand it. Would
it mean that the Wolfes would park Pussy at O[rgonon] with a dozen
other self-regulated infants? That would be wrong; up to the age of at
least 5, the infants would need to be with their mothers for love and
warmth. And even if they began at 5, I think mothers and fathers in
N.Y. would hesitate to send their kids to a home 500 miles away. But
all this will be discussed in Maine I hope.
Zoe grows big in every way. Demanding reading lessons every day
and far too bright for my taste, for she never lets up, simply goes on
energetically all day till she gets tired, which I suppose is the normal
thing to do in life. No interest in having a sweetheart yet. I wonder if