A Dominie's Log

This book, the way it is written, the way he thinks through issues, the way it ends, can be seen as representing all those teachers who at that time helped create the community known as New Ideals in Education Conferences.

[8] It was recognised by the New Ideal's teachers, professors, soldiers, politicians, headteachers, artists, musicians, actors... that the liberty of the child, the autonomy of the learner, their creativity, self-expression, their search for knowledge and learning was the hope for a world of justice and peace.

"In the first place, this amazing Conference at which we have seen sitting side by side Government Officials, advanced Montessorians, antediluvian Teachers like myself, University Professors, Soldiers in khaki, Musicians, Artists, Headmasters of Public Schools, the superintendent of the Little Commonwealth, Primary Schoolteachers, and the American Ambassador himself stands, first and foremost, for Freedom, - I do not like "emancipation", for the word suggests slavery, and the use of it probably promotes it.

[9] Neill in A Dominie's Log writes about the children's ice slide being salted by the policeman to protect the property of the farmers, their horses.

A Dominie's Log is one personal story of a headteacher, it is representative of a whole movement, New Ideals, and it is vital that we celebrate and share this history, so that it effects the present.

[12] One of the earliest reviews is in the Edinburgh Evening News, Monday 15 November 1915:[13] A Dominie's Log, by Mr A. S. Neill, MA, introduces a new Scottish humorist of a very entertaining type.

It is not the anecdotage of a superannuated wielder of the tawse, but the diary of an up-to-date young man of moods and ideas, with the gift of giving these pointed expression.

Mr Neill is not enamoured of the present educational system, and in its short-comings he finds ample scope for the exercise of trenchant criticism and pungent wit.

[14]To celebrate the centenary of A.S. Neill's first book one hundred copies of a special edition[15] are being sent to key cultural, creative, educational and political figures during November (the month of its publication).