In Summerhill, we used to have a community law that pro-
vided that every child over twelve and every member of the
staff must do two hours of work each week on the grounds. The
pay was a token pay of a nickel an hour. If you did not work,
you were fined a dime. A few, teachers included, were content
to pay the fines. Of those who worked, most had their eyes on
the clock. There was no play component in the work, and
therefore the work bored everyone. The law was re-examined,
and the children abolished it by an almost unanimous vote.

A few years ago, we needed an infirmary in Summerhill.
We decided to build one ourselves--a proper building of brick
and cement. None of us had ever laid a brick, but we started in.
A few pupils helped to dig the foundations and knocked
down some old brick walls to get the bricks. But the children
demanded payment. We refused to pay wages. In the end,
the infirmary was built by the teachers and visitors. The job was
just too dull for children, and to their young minds the need for
the sanatorium too remote. They had no self-interest in it. But
some time later when they wanted a bicycle shed, they built
one all by themselves without any help from the staff.

I am writing of children--not as we adults think they should
be--but as they really are. Their community sense--their sense
of social responsibility--does not develop until the age of
eighteen or more. Their interests are immediate, and the future
does not exist for them.

I have never yet seen a lazy child. What is called laziness is
either lack of interest or lack of health. A healthy child cannot
be idle; he has to be doing something all day long. Once I

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