The Free Child - AS Neill - NOTES ON H.M. INSPECTORS’ REPORT by A.S.Neill

We were indeed lucky to have two broadminded Inspectors sent to us. We dropped Misters straight away, and had a few friendly arguments during the two days’ visit. I began with the idea that Inspectors were so accustomed to taking up a French book in front of a class and finding out what it knew, and reasoned that that kind of training and experience would be of no use when it came to inspecting a school in which lessons were not the criterion. I said to one of the Inspectors: “You can’t inspect Summerhill really, because our criteria are happiness, sincerity, balance, sociability.” He grinned and said they’d have a go. And they made a remarkable adaptation, and obviously enjoyed themselves in the process. Odd things struck them. Said one: “What a delightful shock it is to enter a classroom and find the children not taking any notice of you, after years of seeing classes jump up to attention.” Yes, we were lucky to have the two of them. But to the Report itself.

"...the inspectors were a little surprised at the financial difficulties..." The answer lies back on page 145 ( )viz. bad debts, yet they are not the whole story. The Report mentions an annual fee of £120 but since then we have tried to overtake high prices by raising the average fee to about £150. This does not allow any margin for repairing the house, new apparatus, etc. Then if children are allowed to go through their gangster period, as they must be allowed, damages are heavier than in a disciplined school; more furniture is destroyed for one thing.
Numbers. The Report says 70. Today we are down to 50, a fact that offsets to some extent the rise in fees.

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Poor teaching of juniors. We have always had that difflculty, and even with an excellent teacher, it is difficult to get through the ordinary State school work, if only for the reason that the children are free to do other things. If children in a State school at the age of ten or twelve could climb trees or dig holes instead of going to lessons, their standard would be like ours. We accept the period of a lower standard of learning, because we think that play is of greater importance. But even if we assume that backwardness in lessons at junior ages is important, we have the picture of six of the seniors the inspectors examined, who a year later passed Oxford School Certificate well. In all they had 39 subjects among them (average of 6.5 each) and the results were 24 Very Goods (over 70%), 12 Credits (5o%), 2 Passes (over 33%) and one failure in one subject. This last summer two sat the General Certificate of Education and had five passes at Ordinary Level (the old Credit standard), and five at Advanced and Scholarship Level. Again nothing to write home about, but for our small numbers, possibly as big a percentage as that of schools giving priority to academics. The handicap of not being up to State school standard when a junior in Summerhill does not necessarily mean being of a low standard as a senior. For my part I have always liked late starters, subjectively because at the age of nineteen in a competitive examination for entrance to a Normal Teachers’ Training College, I was something like 104thon the list of 106candidates, and of course did not become a Normal student; objectively because I have seen a few bright children who could recite Milton at four, blossom forth as drunkards, loafers, navvies. I like to meet the man who, at the age of fiftythree, says he doesn’t quite know what he is to be in life, and I have a hunch that the boy who knows at seven what he wants to be, is sometimes an inferior who will have a conservative attitude to life later on.

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The Report says : “To have created a situation in which academic education of the most intelligent kind could flourish is an achievement, but in fact it is not flourishing and a great opportunity is thus being lost.”
That is the only paragraph in which the two inspectors did not rise above their academic preoccupations. The system flourishes when a child wants an academic education, as our exam results show. If the paragraph means that better junior teaching would mean that more children would want to take exams, I have no way of knowing whether they would or not. Is it not time that we put academic education in its place? After all Churchill, Stalin, Eisenhower were not chosen because of their academic prowess. Academic education too often tries to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and I sometimes wonder if the lads and lasses who deliver groceries by bicycle have passed the General School Certificate. And I wonder what an academic education would have done for some of the old Summerhill pupils . . . a dress designer, a hairdresser, a ballet dancer (male), musicians, children’s nurses, mechanics, engineers, half a dozen artists.
Salaries. A parent has paid for the raising of all salaries by £2 per month for the year 195253. All gratitude to him.
It is a fair report, a sincere one, a generous one. I am publishing it simply because it is good that the reading public should see a view of Summerhill that is not my own prepossessed one.
Note that the Report does not carry any form of recognition by the Ministry. Personally I do not mind, but recognition would have been welcome because of two factors: the teachers would have come under the State Superannuation Scheme, and parents would have a better chance of getting aid from local Councils if the school were officially recognised. One parent was told that her daughter could sit an examination before they decided to help with fees, but at the same time gave the mother a hint that, seeing the child is normal, she should send her to a State school. I don’t think the girl could pass an exam at ten or so, although she seems to me bright enough to pass Matric when she is sixteen.

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Before I end this book I should like to put on record the fact that the School has never had any difficulty with the Ministry of Education. Any enquiry, any visit of mine to the Ministry has been met with courtesy and friendliness. My only setback was when the Minister refused permission for a Scandinavian parent to import and erect prefabs free of charge, just after the war.

When I think of the authoritative interest taken by the State in continental private schools, I am glad I live and work in a country that, so far, allows much scope to the private venture. I show tolerance of children: the Ministry shows tolerance of my school. I am content.

END

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