I woke up thinking about A.S. Neill

When Neill said children should be free, he did not mean complete freedom, but freedom without license—that everyone can do as they like unless such action encroaches upon another's freedom.

Neill, A. S. (1966). Freedom, Not License!. Hart Pub Co. ISBN 978-0-8055-0016-5.

A. S. Neill

My own criterion of success is the ability to work joyfully and to live positively.

Alexander Sutherland Neill (17 October 1883 – 23 September 1973), known as A. S. Neill, was a Scottish educator and author known for his school, Summerhill School, and its philosophies of community self-governance as well as freedom from adult coercion. He wrote 20 books in his lifetime, and his best seller was the 1960 Summerhill, a compilation of four previous books about his school. The book was a common ancestor to activists in the 60s free school movement.

Quotes

• A good teacher does not draw out; he gives out, and what he gives out is love. And by love I mean approval, or if you like, friendliness, good nature. The good teacher not only understands the child: he approves of the child.
  • The Problem Teacher (1939), p. 11

• If the emotions are free, the intellect will look after itself.
  • The Free Child (1953), p. 29

Summerhill (1960)

A child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestion of any kind, he will develop as far as he is capable of developing.

 

• A child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestion of any kind, he will develop as far as he is capable of developing.
  • p. 4

• Hate breeds hate, and love breeds love.
  • p. 8

• My own criterion of success is the ability to work joyfully and to live positively.
  • p. 29

• You cannot make children learn music or anything else without to some degree converting them into will-less adults. You fashion them into accepters of the status quo – a good thing for a society that needs obedient sitters at dreary desks, standers in shops, mechanical catchers of the 8:30 suburban train – a society, in short, that is carried on the shabby shoulders of the scared little man – the scared-to-death conformist.
  • p. 12

• No one has the right to make a boy learn Latin, because learning is a matter for individual choice; but if in a Latin class, a boy fools all the time, the class should throw him out, because he interferes with the freedom of others.
  • p. 356