Word: swearing
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...onlooker marveled: "Everyone must raise his hand to swear that he is a child of God and won't tell lies!" One witness thought he knew what was wanted; he put hand to forehead and intoned: "Heaven is above and earth below. May my conscience be relied upon!" Did a witness know the difference between truth and falsehood? the court wanted to know. When phrased in literary Chinese, this seemed a question for Kant or Confucius. The witness said "No." Did he know the difference between right and wrong? "Oh, naturally," said the relieved Chinese...
...decided, "is the art of leaving children alone." Summerhill is Britain's most progressive school. At his school ("That dreadful School," he likes to call it), there is no discipline, except for such rules as the children lay down in their weekly meetings. The children are permitted to swear, steal, smash things up, masturbate, lie, play hookey or do anything else that, in Schoolmaster Neill's judgment, will rid them of inhibitions. At Summerhill, "inhibitions" are a prime preoccupation. Discipline, Neill believes, is "a substitute for a knowledge of children...
Often Neill is voted down by the council. Once he tried to introduce automatic fines for swearing. He took a shrewd line: "Why should I suffer if some fathead swears in front of a prospective parent? It's not a moral question at all; it is purely financial. You swear and I lose a pupil." Said a 14-year-old: "Neill is talking rot. If the parent is shocked he doesn't believe in Summerhill anyway." The council decided to go on swearing...
...Neill's belief that it is better to let children swear than to repress this enthusiasm; he finds that it presently wears itself out. It is the same, he feels, with other repressions. At Summerhill, the worst behaved children are always the newcomers, because, of course, they have been most repressed. New pupils often work out their repressed hate of their elders by biting, scratching, swearing interminably and "being generally anti-social." Says Mrs. Neill: "A small boy will sometimes walk in here, fix me with a glare and say, 'You stupid bitch.' But it doesn...
Mississippi tried a new racial tactic. In last week's Democratic primaries, prospective voters could be required, under a state law passed last March, to swear their faith in "party principles." In Mississippi, Democratic party principles not only mean white supremacy, but include opposition to federal antilynching, anti-poll-tax and fair employment practices laws. The new law was frankly designed to keep Negroes from voting...