A.S.Neill

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A.S. Neill, a Scottish writer and rebel, was born in Forfar, Angus on 17th October 1883. That somebody of his generation could not only cross the divide between generations, but could also be a leader in a most modern approach to children and childhood, is extraordinary.

He created a community in which children could be free from adult authority. The school and his ideas became world-famous through Neill's writings and lectures, his books are still read worldwide. In the late 60’s Neill's success at Summerhill was finally recognised and he was awarded honorary degrees from the universities of Newcastle, Exeter and Essex. He was also recognised amongst the top 12 men and women who have influenced British schooling during the last millennium by the Times Educational Supplement (31.12.1999)

"In the current educational climate in which pupils have little or no control over the running of their schools and certainly no control over what they learn, the public good can only profit from exposure to alternative philosophies. Neill's has stood the test of time far longer than any other educational philosophy or initiative, whether radical or mainstream."
Dr Alan Thomas Visiting Fellow University of London Institute of Education.

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"What cannot be doubted is that a piece of fascinating and invaluable educational research is going on here which it would do all educationalists good to see."
Ministry of Education HM Inspectors Report, June 1949

"Both in his writings and the remarkable school which he founded, he (A.S. Neill) has left us an extremely precious heritage. Neill was one of the great original thinkers in education in the 20th Century." 
Sir Christopher Ball Chancellor, University of Derby

"Neill’s educational philosophy has had a major and significant impact on a worldwide scale."
John MacBeath OBE, Professor of Educational Leadership at University of Cambridge

"One of the main tenets of Neill's work has to do with the academic and cultural worth of incorporating non-partisan democratic values within the educational curriculum and process itself. Indeed, his philosophy (including this tenet) has to some extent been adopted by mainstream educational practice world-wide."
Herbert Blumberg Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Goldsmith’s College, University of London.

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"His (Neill’s) system has had a profound effect on human rights law as it affects children. It pioneered the idea which is fundamental to Summerhill, that children have rights, that they are not owned by parents or teachers, that it is a crime to assault them physically and a serious mistake to force them to act against their will except out of consideration for others. 
These tenets were seen as absolutely revolutionary in the 1920s. They were described as anarchic. They are now to be found in the 1989 convention on the rights of the child, ratified by 189 nations of the world."
Geoffrey Robertson QC

"Summerhill has stood by its principles for nearly eighty years whilst the state system has veered in one direction or another according to the particular predilections of the government of the day. Even those who do not fully agree with the philosophy enshrined in Summerhill practice have often acknowledged a profound debt to an alternative opinion and example which provokes a re-evaluation of one's own deepest assumptions about children and their education. It has also set a shining example of genuine democracy in education from well before this was taken at all seriously in the state system."
Stuart Ainsworth Senior Lecturer in Educational studies Co-director of the Equality and Discrimination, Strathclyde University

"A.S. Neill 1883-1973 Scottish born and educated, Neill founded Summerhill school in Suffolk where his iconoclastic views on education were given free rein. Although pupil numbers were small, Neill's numerous publications and lectures made him the best known British progressive educationist of the twentieth century."
On Giants Shoulder; Millennium Edition, Times Educational Supplement (31.12.1999)

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"I was asked as an independent outside expert to report on the school for the purpose of its dispute with the then Department for Education and Employment in 2000, which ended successfully for the school. It is interesting to note that as part of the those proceedings before the Independent Schools Tribunal, A. S. Neill's educational philosophy was explicitly accepted by the Department as an established strand of modern educational theory."
Ian Cunningham Visiting professor in the School of Lifelong Learning and Education at Middlesex University

"In December 1999 I was asked to act as an 'expert witness' for Summerhill School in their challenge to the 1999 HMI evaluation of the school. My judgements were based on considerable fieldwork in the school itself, interviewing pupils and teachers; examination of extensive 'independent evaluation' launched by another group of experts; and an examination of the validity of the HMI inspection of the school in March 1999. My evaluation of the school included work done by Professors Barry MacDonald, Saville Kushner, Harry Torrance and Julie Allan. The research was supported by the Nuffield Foundation. 
I found clear evidence that the school was meeting and exceeding its aims, that parents were universally very satisfied with the education of their children and that the inspection process had been deeply flawed."
Ian Stronach Education Research Professor, Manchester Metropolitan University

Books

Written by A.S. Neill

  • A Dominie's Log Herbert Jenkins, 1915; Hart, 1975

  • A Dominie Dismissed Herbert Jenkins, 1917; Hart, 1975

  • A Booming of Bunkie fiction, Herbert Jenkins, 1919

  • A Dominie in Doubt Herbert Jenkins, 1921; Hart, 1975

  • Carroty Broon fiction, Herbert Jenkins, 1921

  • A Dominie Abroad Herbert Jenkins, 1923

  • A Dominie's Five fiction, Herbert Jenkins, 1924

  • The Problem Child Herbert Jenkins, 1926; McBride, 1928

  • The Problem Parent Herbert Jenkins, 1932

  • Is Scotland Educated? Routledge, 1936

  • That Dreadful School Herbert Jenkins, 1937

  • Last Man Alive A Story for Children from the Age of Seven to Seventy, Herbert Jenkins, 1939; Gollancz, 1970

  • The Problem Teacher Herbert Jenkins, 1939; International Universities Press, 1946

  • Hearts Not Heads in the School Herbert Jenkins, 1945

  • The Problem Family Herbert Jenkins, 1949; Hermitage Press, 1949

  • The Free Child Herbert Jenkins, 1953

  • Summerhill Gollancz, 1962; Penguin, 1968; Hart 1960

  • Freedom not License! Hart 1966

  • Talking of Summerhill Gollancz, 1967

  • Neill! Neill! Orange Peel! A Personal View of Ninety Years, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973; Quartet, 1977. ISBN 0 297 76554 X

  • All The Best, Neill, Letters From Summerhill Jonathan Croall (ed.), Andre Deutsch, 1983. ISBN 0 233 97594 2

  • The New Summerhill Albert Lamb (ed.), Penguin Education, 1992. ISBN 0-14-016783-8

  • Summerhill and A.S.Neill Edited by Mark Vaughan. Open University Press 2006. Contributions from Zoë Readhead and Ian Stronach. Introduction by Tim Brighouse. ISBN-10: 0 335 21913 6

Books about Neill & Summerhill

  • Neill of Summerhill, The Permanent Rebel Jonathan Croall, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. ISBN 0-7100-9300-4

  • Neill & Summerhill, A Man and His Work A pictorial study by John Walmsley, Penguin Education, 1969

  • Fifty Years of Freedom A. S. Neill and the Evolution of the Summerhill Idea - Ray Hemmings, Allen & Unwin 1972

  • Summerhill, A Loving World Photographs by Herb Snitzer, Macmillan, 1964

  • Record of a Friendship The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A. S. Neill - Beverley R. Placzek (ed.), Gollancz, 1981. ISBN 0 575 03054 2

  • Inside Summerhill Photographs by Joshua Popenoe, Hart, 1969

  • Summerhill: For and Against Assessments of A. S. Neill - Harold Hart (ed.), Hart, 1970; Angus & Robertson, 1973 (includes essays by Bruno Bettleheim, John Holt, Sylvia Ashton- Warner, Paul Goodman, Fred Hechinger, Erich Fromm).

  • Summerhill Diary Bjarne Segefjord, Gollancz, 1971

  • Free Range Childhood Matthew Appleton, Gale Centre Pulications, 2002; Solomon Press, 2000. ISBN 1870258460

  • Alexander S. Neill Axel D. Kuhn, Rowholt, Germany. ISBN 3-499-50549-5

  • Real Education, Varieties of Freedom David Gribble, Lib Ed, 1998. ISBN 0 9513997 5 6

  • Inspecting the Island a Novel based on Summerhill - Hylda Sims, Seven-Ply Yarns, 2000. ISBN 0-9538797-0-4

  • After Summerhill What happened to the pupils of Britain's most radical school? By Hussein Lucas 2011 ISBN: 978-1-84289-052-3 Herbert Adler Publishing

  • Summerhill Hoy de Zoë Neill Readhead. Por fin, el libro mas actual sobre la escuela traducido al espanol."Summerhill today", Zoë Neill Readhead. Finally, the most recent book about Summerhill translated into Spanish.


To obtain second hand books by A.S.Neill try this site, it has had many good offers in the past.