In many homes, the child's ego is suppressed because the parents
treat the child as a perpetual infant. I have known girls of four-
teen who were not trusted by their parents to light a fire. Par-
ents, with the best of intention, keep back responsibility from
the child.

"You must take your sweater, dear; I am sure it is going to
rain."

"Now don't go near the railway tracks."

"Have you washed your face?"

Once, when a new pupil came to Summerhill, her mother told
me that the girl was very dirty in her habits; that she had to tell
her ten times a day to wash. From the day following her arrival,
that child took a cold bath every morning, and at least two hot
ones a week. She was always clean in face and hands. Her lack
of cleanliness at home--which may have existed only in the
mother's imagination--was due to her being treated as a baby.

Children should be allowed almost infinite responsibility.
Montessori-trained infants carry tureens full of hot soup. One of
our youngest pupils, aged seven, uses all sorts of tools: chisels,
axes, saws, knives. I cut my fingers oftener than he does.

Duty should not be confused with responsibility. A sense of
duty should be acquired later in life, if at all. The word duty has
so many sinister associations. I think of women who have
missed life and love because they felt compelled by a sense of
duty to stay and look after elderly parents. I think of the married
couples who have long since ceased to love each other but go on
living together miserably because of their sense of duty. Many a
child away at boarding school or at summer camp feels the duty

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