School Without Rules

At Burgess Hill School near London, two seven-year-olds strolled into the recreation room. "Got a match?" asked one. "Sure," said the other. The boys were puffing away, when suddenly the headmaster appeared. "Hi, Jimmy," they said with friendly smiles. Waving back with kind disinterest, James East, M.A. (Cantab.), explained to a visitor: "Kids always smoke, and I'd rather know about it than have it done in secret."

Burgess Hill is the tight little isle's loosest "freedom" (progressive) school. Shunning all rules, it allows boys and girls aged 7 to 17 to smoke, swear, pet, go barefoot, stay dirty--and study only if they care to. The school looks it: a crumbling Victorian mansion with peeling ochre paint and broken windows, its front pillars alternately scrawled with "Ban the Bomb" and "Keep the Bomb." Inside is a happy jumble of paintpots, squashed toffees, dirty clothes and unmade beds. Scribbled over the walls are drawings, poems and odd messages. Sample: "I've been sick and I feel godam arful."

Discipline Dulls. Founded 25 years ago, Burgess Hill operates on the hopeful theory that freedom breeds responsibility, not license. This exactly suits Headmaster East, 46, a bachelor who believes that discipline dulls the spirit. The son of a professional soldier, East once aspired to be an Anglican priest, studied theology after Cambridge. When a wartime stint in the R.A.F. eroded his faith, he turned his fervor to children. Eight years ago, he took over Burgess Hill "to establish a community in which the individual can find out for himself the extent to which he must curb his personality so he can work well with others."

East's 36 charges are mostly the children of arty people ("We have no children of businessmen"). The school offers all the conventional subjects, from art to science, French, history and math. But students attend only classes that interest them. To hold his audience, a teacher may have to lecture while sprawled on the floor. Though most children attend regularly, and some even beg for homework, others play hooky for weeks at a time. One boy failed to appear once in two years. "I think that he must have had strong outside interests," East muses.

Each week East holds a "school meeting"--to settle behavioral problems. Typical debate: Was East right to blast a lad whose banging around at night woke him up? Consensus: No. In keeping with school spirit was the problem of children who kept hurtling about the house on bicycles, alarming pedestrians. When the practice was voted down, one nine-year-old refused to accept the decision. But he did compromise: he now rides only two days a week, which East regards as splendid evidence of personality development.

A Majority for God. Interestingly, smoking and swearing diminish at Burgess Hill as the kids get older. Unrepressed while young, says East, they simply grow out of it. Drinking is almost unknown; the kids apparently value their pocket money. As for sex, boys and girls can theoretically bathe or even sleep together, but as it turns out, they only pet a little. "At my old school," explains one girl, "we talked about boys all day long. Here boys and girls mix so freely that we take one another for granted."

Energy aplenty remains for games, dancing, painting, play-acting and frequent debates. One recent subject: "Does God exist?" To East's surprise, God won--by one vote.

"There is something about these children," says one satisfied mother. "There is honesty and kind directness. They don't dissemble or try to be adults. And they don't giggle." The kids themselves are passionately loyal to their offbeat school. "When I left," says one old girl, "I just couldn't find anything to talk about to other kids. They didn't think about anything."

East does not seek accreditation by the Ministry of Education, but government inspectors frequently check his school, as the law requires. Says one inspector, laconically: "Parents have a right to send their children to any school they like so long as it provides adequate teaching. This is a free country."

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