"Tim Slattery" wrote in message
...
Wolf K wrote:


In the UK, "public school" usually means the ones (mostly) attended by
the privileged - i. e. fee-paying. (The well-known ones like Eton and
Harrow, but really any fee-paying one.) I've never been sure why we call
them "public schools" - I think the argument might be that they are
_open_ to any member of the public who can afford the fees, though if
that _is_ the argument it's a weak one, since many have entrance exam.s.

IIRC, they were called "public" in contrast to the schools run by the
church. But I didn't search for confirmation.

I don't think so. My understanding is that back in medieval times, the
quality hired tutors to teach their offspring, there were no such
things as schools to send them to. The "Public Schools", then, were
institutions that anybody could send their kids to, as opposed to
private, in-home education. But it wasn't free (government supported).
That's what a public school is in the US: a government supported
school that does not charge tuition.

This terminology makes a lot more sense than in the UK where we have both
"public" and "private" schools which are very similar: fee-paying (*)
schools which are not paid for by "the State" (ie the government, from
taxes).

The school that I went to was founded in the early 1800s "for the board and
education of the sons of Nonconformist clergy" though widened its intake to
include any boys whose parents could pay the fees, no matter what their
religious beliefs (if any). When I was there in the 1970s it still had a
"visiting chaplain" from the United Reformed Church which was referred to as
Zion, but apart from that, and the statutory Religious Education lesson that
all schools are required to teach every week, the religious influence was
fairly non-existent.

Some public schools, like Ampleforth College, have much greater religious
input, to the extent that some of the teaching is done by monks and a
"Benedictine ethos permeates pupils' experience".

(*) Apart from those exception children who are granted a bursary or
scholarship, often paid for by a benefactor who long ago invested money
whose interest would pay the fees of an exceptional pupil.