Homer Lane
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Homer Lane (1875-1925) was an American-born educator who believed that the behaviour and character of children improved when they were given more control over their lives.
He was born in Connecticut and started his teaching creer at Peters High School in Southborough Mass. He later went to Detroit where he worked with youths who had run afoul of the law. In 1912 he was invited to go to England where he founded the Little Commonwealth school in Dorset, England and greatly influenced A. S. Neill, the founder of Summerhill School.
Homer Lane had 2 children by his first wife, Cora Barney and three by his scond wife. They also adopted a daughter. He died in Paris after having been deported from England for failing to maintain his alien registration. His family remained in England. As is somewhat common among anarchic educators Lane got in to trouble with the authorities because of an affair.
Lane's foremost disciple was his patient, Alexander S. Neill who began a school, Summerhill, which became exceptionally well known after an American publisher, Harold Hart, published SUMMERHILL:A RADICAL APPROACH TO CHILD REARING, in 1969 the book sold 200,000 copies. Hart had never before published a trade book, being a publisher of children's specialty books and having been advised strongly against publishing the book. He was given moral support by a number of alternative educators in the United States, but took the plunge on his own.
The American school, Summerlane, in North Branch, New York was explicitly named for Summerhill and Homer Lane, it began in 1963 in North Carolina but was burned by racists and moved to Mileses, New York, then settling near North Branch (From New York City, Hwy 17 to Roscoe, NY, thence into the farmland).
More information can be found in these sources Homer Lane, Talks to Parents and Teachers, Allen&Unwin, London, 1928
Homer Lane and The Little Commonwealth, on line, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/homerlane.htm (exerpt from Homer Lane's "Talks"
von Hilsheimer, G. Is There A Science of Behavior, Humanitas, Maitland, Fl 1967
How To Live With Your Special
Child, Acropolis Books, 1970
also published as Understanding Young People in Trouble, Acropolis Books, 1970 (soft cover)
W.David Wills, Homer Lane: A biography, Allen&Unwin, 1964
Bibliography on Homer Lane, The Little Commonweath and related democratic schools.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS RELATING TO HOMER LANE’S WORK
Aichorn, August, Wayward Youth, New York, Viking Press, 1935
Aiken, W.M. Adventure in American education, 5 vol., New York, Harper & Brothers, 1942
Allen, Lady of Hurtwood; Hurd H. et al Adventure playgrounds, The National Playing Fields Association, London, 1960
Binns, H.B. A century of education: 1808-1908, London, J.M. Dent & Co., 1908
Burns, M. Mr. Lyward’s Answer, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1956
Holms, G. The Idiot Teacher, Longon, Faber & Faber, 1952
Holt, John, How Children Fail, New York, Pittman, 1964
Holt, John, How Children Learn, New York, Pittman, 1966
Lane, Homer, Talks to parents and teachers, London, Allen & Unwin, 1928
Makarenko, A.S., A Book for Parents, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954 _____________ Learning to Live, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953 _____________ The Road to Life, 3 vol., Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1951
National Playing Fields Association, Adventure Playgrounds, 71 Escleston Square,London SW1, 1960, pamphlets
____________________________, Planning an imaginative children’s playground without leadership, mimeograph, 1964
Neill, A.. S. Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing. New York, Harold Hart, 1960
Pearse, J.H. & Crocker, L.H. The Peckham Experiment: a study in the living structure of society. London, Allen & Unwin for the Sir Halley Steart Trust, 1943
Powers, E. & Witmer, H. An experiment in the preention of delinquency: The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, New York: Columbia U. Press, 1951
Spiel, Oskar. Discipline Without Punishment. London, Faber & Faber, 1962
von Hilsheimer, George. Summerhill: A radical approach to education, IN Values for a changing America, Hellen Huus, ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975 pp 59-75 Children, Schools and Utopias. This Magazine is about Schools, 1966, 23-37
How To Live With Your Special Child, Washington, D.C., Acropolis Press, 1970
Wills, W. David. Homer Lane: A Biography, London, Allen & Unwin, 1964 The Hawkspur Experiment, London, Allen&Unwin, ????
