Influences On Neill's Thought
Neill's biggest mentor in education was Homer Lane, US-born but British based. Neill was also an admirer and close friend of psychoanalytical innovator Wilhelm Reich and a student of Freudian psychoanalysis, though in his autobiography he wrote that "Much of what I thought I had learned from the psychoanalysts has disappeared with time".
Another major contributor to the field of Libertarian Education was Bertrand Russell whose own self-founded Beacon Hill School (England) (one of several schools bearing this name) is often compared with Summerhill. Russell was a correspondent of Neill and offered his support.
Read more about this topic: A. S. Neill
Famous quotes containing the words influences and/or thought:
“Do not seek anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Only by being guilty of Folly does mortal man in many cases arrive at the perception of Sense. A thought which should forever free us from hasty imprecations upon our ever-recurring intervals of Folly; since though Folly be our teacher, Sense is the lesson she teaches; since, if Folly wholly depart from us, Further Sense will be her companion in the flight, and we will be left standing midway in wisdom.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)