Public Schools

[beale]

Why are public schools so-called when they are run privately?

[Quizmonster]

A number of free grammar schools for bright boys were set up hundreds of years ago.  Because they were free, they were labelled �public' schools.  Over centuries, many began to take fee-paying pupils alongside the scholarship boys for which the schools had been founded.  The position is, of course, reversed today, with fee-paying pupils vastly outnumbering the scholarship ones.  Many also now take girls.

[tartanwiz]

Sorry, Quizzy, but I think it goes back further than that. At one time, the children of the rich were educated privately, i.e. at home by private tutors. Then there appeared the idea of 'public' boarding schools like Rugby or Eton, which were open to anybody who could afford the fees.

[Quizmonster]

Dear Tartan, here's an extract from the 'Encyclop�dia Britannica's' article on British public schools...

"The typical great public school evolved from an institution"...ie 'a grammar school'..."founded by a single benefactor during the late European Middle Ages or Renaissance"...ie 'hundreds of years ago'... "Such charitable foundations, almost invariably for males only, had usually been intended to educate local boys from relatively humble backgrounds."...ie 'scholarship boys'..."From about the 17th century the upper classes took increasing advantage of the tuition afforded by these foundations. As pupils paying the market rate became more numerous, the schools were increasingly transformed into boarding establishments."

I think I'll stick with my original answer, T, re the time-scales and the fact that the boarding element for rich lads was definitely an 'add-on'. Cheers

[ursula62]

Harrow School certainly started the way Quizmonster describes. It was originally a one room school run for the children of the tradesmen of the area, but it gradually became a place where nobility were educated. In the 1870s a memorial school was set up to educate the local tradesmen's children. This school is John Lyon School for boys - which is a private school with an entrance exam and it's named after John Lyon who founded Harrow School by royal charter from Elizabeth I.