Children are naturally noisy, and parents must accept this fact
and learn to live with it. A child, if he is to grow in health,
must be allowed a fair amount of noisy play.

For nearly forty years now, I have lived with children's noise.
As a rule I do not consciously hear that noise. An analogy
would be living in a brass factory; one becomes accustomed to
the perpetual clang of hammers. And those who live on busy
streets come to be unaware of the roar of traffic. One difference
is that hammering and traffic are more or less constant sounds,
whereas the noise of children is ever varied and strident. The
noise can get on one's nerves. I must confess that when I moved
out of the main building to live in the cottage some years ago,
the peace of the evening was most pleasant after years of the
noise of some fifty children.

The Summerhill dining room is a noisy place. Children, like
animals, are loud at meal times. We only allow visitors without
noise complexes to dine with us. My wife and I dine alone, but
then we spend about two hours a day serving out the children's dinners, and we need the respite from noise. The teachers do not
like too much noise, but the adolescents do not seem to mind the
noise of the juniors. And when a senior does bring up the
question of the juniors' noise in the dining room, the juniors
quite truthfully roar their protests that the seniors make just as
much noise.

The suppression of noise never gives the child so strong a re-
pression as does the suppression of interest in bodily functions.
Noise is never called dirty. The tone of voice that father adopts
in shouting "Stop that row!" is an open, heartfelt expression

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