[struggle] book. If you get known as the serious scientist of the Charak
teranalyse, etc. then you can come out as the champion of youth. Here
I have experience. When my Problem Child* appeared in New York
(McBride and Co) about 1928 a paper said it was an obscene book,
and McBride got frightened and stopped advertising it so that the
yearly sales were about two copies.
Little to tell you about life here. We are away from the war so far,
but are in a smaller house and haven't room for everyone. We are even
using passages for sleeping in, and I have to refuse new pupils daily,
much to my sorrow. It isn't easy for us here, for Wales is a very narrow
religious place and we are looked on as atheists and sinners. I never
yet saw a religious community that wasn't filled with rotten hate and
spite. Must be many stiff stomachs round here I fear.
I was glad to hear from you that Elsa was safe, but not so pleased to
think that she possibly had to marry for safety. I haven't heard a word
of the Backers and your group. I expect the new Sex Pol society has
been broken up by Hitlerism.
I am troubled because I don't seem to get on with any psychological
work now. From mom till night I am kept busy teaching maths, doing
all my own secretarial work, mending doors, planning for food, inter
viewing officials (who never heard of me and bother me about regula
tions). Add to that that our Central Heating is broken and we can't get
it repaired. We had to wait for 8 weeks to get electricity in and lived
with candles. Life is so much more primitive, and all of us have to cook
and clean rooms, that is do the necessary things first in order to live.
That is not the whole truth; much sadder is the fact that since the war
I haven't been able to concentrate on the individual psychology of any
one. The individual has become to me relatively unimportant. I hope
the interest will come back to me.
I can't see how I can come to America. It would mean breaking up
the school here, leaving children and staff who have been with me
for years. And as America is likely soon to be in the war, conditions
there may not be too good for new education.
Constance seems to be still in London braving the bombs. She always
writes saying how well she feels since her analysis.
- The Problem Child (London: Herbert Jenkins, 19 2 6). Neill shows how un
happiness arises from coercive upbringing, and maintains that all crimes and
hatreds, and hence all wars, can be traced to unhappiness. Freedom, on the other
hand, "does not make children good, it simply allows them to be good."