public school

1. An elementary or secondary school in the United States supported by public funds and providing free education for children of a community or district.
2. A private boarding school in Great Britain for pupils between the ages of 13 and 18.

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Speaking of schools, when the English say public, we say private. The famous public schools of England are run by private governing bodies, charge tuition, take students from throughout the nation, and admit only a chosen few. In America, they would be private schools. But the English speak of them as public because they serve the public welfare, educating the elite of the nation, and because they had their beginnings as endowed public charities, educating children who were too poor to have private tutors.

The earliest record of public school in North America shows a different sense of public developing here. In 1636 the Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony "voted for the erecting a publick Schooll or Colledge in Cambridge." That was none other than the school we now know as Harvard University. Like the English public schools, it charged tuition, drew students from the entire land, and was selective in admissions; but unlike the English, at the time of its founding and for some time after it was supported by public money.

After that, our current American meaning of public school was not long in coming. In 1647 the first public elementary school was established in Massachusetts using public moneys. In 1669 we find mention of "the Publick Schoole in Roxbury," and in 1710 in Boston a committee proposed "to Erect a Brick Building...to be let out for the Support of a Publick writing School in the Town." Massachusetts eventually required the establishment of a public elementary school in any community of at least fifty families. Communities of one hundred or more families were obliged to have a secondary school as well.

Following the American Revolution, education achieved considerable attention as a unifying factor for the nation, one consequence of which was the concept of state public school systems. In government lands opened for settlement, the Continental Congress of 1785 ordained that "There shall be reserved the lot N 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools, within the said township."

During the Middle Ages, the grammar school provided education for poor scholars intended for the church and for the sons of noblemen. This included such schools as Eton and Winchester. By the 18th cent. a number of ‘Great Schools’ had emerged, including Harrow, Rugby, Sherborne, and Canterbury. Other changes during the early 19th cent. stimulated the demand for public schools. Reforms in public schools were introduced by heads such as Samuel Butler at Shrewsbury (1793-1836), and Dr Thomas Arnold at Rugby (1828-42), who were clerics. The school chapel became the focal point of life, discipline was enforced through prefects, and team games emphasized.

Criticism of some of the public schools was so persistent that a royal commission was appointed in 1861, under Lord Clarendon, to investigate conditions in the nine large public schools Winchester, Eton, Westminster, Charterhouse, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, St Paul's, and Merchant Taylors'. Whilst broadly satisfied, the commissioners made a number of recommendations which were embodied in the Public Schools Act (1868). Governing bodies were reformed and schools such as Harrow developed a modern side.

Attempts were made in the 20th cent. to bridge the gap between public schools and the state-provided sector. The Fleming Report (1944) and the first report of the Public Schools Commission (1968) (Newsom) were impracticable. The second report (1970) (Donnison) was more positive, but the advent of a Conservative government avoided further threats. The term public school has now been superseded by independent school.

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Public school may refer to:

• Public school (privately funded), a prestigious, traditional independent secondary school funded by tuition fees
• Public school (government funded), a school funded with tax revenue and administered by a government or governmental agency
• Public university, any university operated by the state, as opposed to being a private enterprise

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