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Cleanliness and Clothing

In the matter of personal cleanliness, girls on the whole are ti-
dier than boys. At Summerhill our boys and girls from about fif-
teen onward are concerned about their appearance. On the other
hand, girls are no tidier about their rooms than boys are--that
is, girls up to fourteen. They dress dolls, make theater costumes,
and leave their floors littered with rubbish, but it is all creative
rubbish.

Seldom do we have a girl at Summerhill who won't wash. We
did have one, aged nine, from a home where her granny had a
complex about cleanliness and apparently washed Mildred ten
times a day. Her housemother came to me one day, saying:
" Mildred hasn't washed for a week. She won't have a bath and
she is beginning to smell. What shall I do?"

"Send her in to me," I said.

Mildred came in presently, her hands and face very dirty.

"Look here," I said sternly, "this won't do."

"But I don't want to wash," she protested.

"Shut up," I said. "Who's talking about washing? Look in the
glass." (She did so.) "What do you think of your face?"

"It isn't very clean, is it?" she asked, grinning.

"It's too clean," I said. "I won't have girls with clean faces in
this school. Now get out!"

She went straight to the coal cellar and rubbed her face black.
She came back to me triumphantly. "Will that do?" she asked.

I examined her face with due gravity. "No," I said. "There is
a patch of white on that cheek."

Mildred took a bath that night. But I can't fathom just why
she did.

-184-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. Contributors: A. S. Neill - author. Publisher: Hart Publishing. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1960. Page Number: 184.
    
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