who after all seldom come to much. Once I thought and said that the
problem child was the one with originality and guts, but I was wrong.
He is mostly the super-egoist, the player to the gallery. I have had
dozens pass through S'hill but I can't think of one who later showed
brilliance in work. I feel and have felt for years that it is better to con
centrate on the normal ones who are worth the trouble.
U.S.A. education sounds to me in a bad way. I get letters now from
well-known American teachers, all progressive, but again compromisers
on the main things, timid of freedom, moral about sex. I look forward
to having fun when I meet them over there.
Constance. Etwas [Something] wrong with her. Unhappy. But what
is the answer to the fact that a woman of her age does not attract lovers?
She came down to help me here for two months, but I found her almost
supporting the malcontents among the staff.
Your boy looks a wonder child. With the same post came the photo
of a boy the same age, son of a late girl on our staff. Your lad looks
twice as intelligent and alive. Another Willy Reich-poor kid! ...
Well, Reich, all my best wishes to you and your Frau. Sad to hear
you say friends have drifted away in the war years. Perhaps not. When
human contact begins again it may be like old times; the touch of the
hand, the glance, the laugh can't be kept fresh by letters. I know that
when we meet over a bottle of the best we'll pick up the threads of life
where we dropped them.
- I •
Forest Hills, New York
April 2, 1945
My dear Neill:
This will be a short letter. I understand very well your desire
to get away from curative psychology. For a few months now, I am
bothered terribly by the same wish to escape the world of the neurotic
and to make Schluss [an end] with my psychiatric nuisance work. I am
trying to find a way to secure my living somehow, and to give all my
time to the investigation of living matter. I would only continue to re
structure educators who are dealing with nursery schools. That is justi
fied by the only hope we have, which is in the new-born babies.
I agree with your judgment on U.S.A. education. But there are great
possibilities here for a break-through, but also, of course, for being
hanged for the break-through.