A.S. Neill
| A. S. Neill | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Alexander Sutherland Neill 17 October 1883 Forfar, Scotland |
| Died | 23 September 1973 (aged 89) Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England |
| Occupation | Educator, author |
| Known for | founding Summerhill School, advocacy of personal freedom for children, progressive education |
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 freedom from adult coercion and community self-governance. Neill was raised in Scotland, where he was a poor student but became a schoolteacher. He taught in several schools across the country before attending the University of Edinburgh from 1908 to 1912. He took two jobs in journalism before World War I, and taught at Gretna Green Village School during the first year of the war, writing his first book, A Dominie's Log (1915), as a diary of his life as headteacher. He joined the staff of a school in Dresden in 1921, founding Summerhill upon his return to England in 1924. Summerhill received widespread renown in the 1920s/1930s and then in the 1960s/1970s, due to progressive and counterculture interest. Neill 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 1960s free school movement.
Alexander Sutherland Neill was born in Forfar, Scotland on 17 October 1883 to George and Mary Neill. He was their fourth son, one of the eight that survived of 13. He was raised in an austere, Calvinist house with values of fear, guilt, and adult and divine authority, which he later repudiated. As a child, he was obedient, quiet, and uninterested in school. His father was the village dominie (Scottish schoolmaster) of Kingsmuir, near Forfar in eastern Scotland, and his mother had been a teacher before her marriage. The village dominie held a position of prestige, hierarchically beneath that of upper classes, doctors, and clergymen. As typical of Scottish methods at the time, the dominie controlled overcrowded classrooms with his tawse, as corporal punishment. Neill feared his father, though he later claimed his father's imagination as a role model for good teaching. Scholars have interpreted Neill's harsh childhood as the impetus for his later philosophy, though his father was not shown to be harsher to Allie (as he was known) than to anyone else. Neill's mother (née Sutherland Sinclair) held high standards for her family, and demanded comportment to set the family apart from the townspeople.
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