In his influential 1960 book Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, one of 21 books he wrote, Neill recalled that he and his first wife, Ada, wanted 'to make the school fit the child instead of making the child fit the school. However, the peasants in that area and the Austrian government became upset with his unorthodox curriculum and methods, and after seven months of harassment, he removed the school to England in 1924, establishing it in the town of Leiston in Suffix. Political turmoil in Dresden caused him to move the school to the Austrian Tirol.

He was forced to resign in 1920.Īfter a short stint as coeditor of the New Era (the organ of the New Education Fellowship), Neill and several others founded Summerhill, an international school near Dresden, Germany, in 1921. Following the war Neill had a brief appointment at the King Alfred School in Hamp-stead, where he tried to implement his theory of self-government for children. There he met Homer Lane, one of the early advocates of 'progressive education, ' who introduced him to Freudian psychology and convinced him that the best way to deal with a recalcitrant or delinquent child is to allow the child to govern himself. Neill voluntarily left the school for a brief sojourn as an artillery cadet. It was at this time that he first became convinced that conventional education was oppressive and futile. He then worked briefly in journalism and did editorial work for an encyclopedia.Īt the beginning of World War I, Neill became headmaster of a coeducational school in Scotland which prepared its students for work on farms and in domestic service. He then spent what he described as three wretched years as a teacher in a school in Fife, received his teaching certification, and moved on to a school where discipline was easier and his life was somewhat happier for two years. Shortly thereafter, he became a pupil-teacher in his father's school, where he remained for four years.

He then worked as an assistant in a dry-goods shop. At the age of 14, Neill went to work as an office boy in an Edinburgh factory, but he became so lonely and homesick that his parents allowed him to return home.

Alexander sutherland neill summerhill