Referat faculty: Economics and management Group: 822c specialty: Social work Course: II

Early history

Public schools emerged from grammar schools established to educate pupils, usually destined for clerical orders, in Latin grammar. Thus, concerned with educating boys. The term "public" came into use because over time access to such schools was not restricted on the basis of home location, paternal occupation or status, and that they were subject to an element of public management or control, in contrast to private schools which were run for the personal profit of the owner(s). The origins of schools in England were primarily religious, although in 1640 the House of Commons invited the reformer and promoter of universal education Comenius to England to establish and participate in an agency for the promotion of learning. It was intended that by-products of this would be the publication of "universal" books and the setting up of schools for boys and girls. The English Civil War prevented any such reform.
Some schools are particularly old, such as The King's School, Canterbury c. 597, The King's School, Rochester c. 604, St Peter's School, York c. 627, Sherborne School c. 710, (refounded 1550 by Edward VI), Warwick School c. 914, King's Ely c. 970 (once the Ely Cathedral Grammar School, then the King's School Ely when refounded in 1541 by Henry VIII, subsequently adopting the current name in 2012) and St Albans School c. 948. Until the Late Middle Ages most schools were controlled by the Church; and had specific entrance criteria; others were restricted to the sons of members of guilds, trades, or livery companies.
In 1382 William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England, founded Winchester College. In 1440 Henry VI founded Eton College. These schools had significantly larger foundations than the existing local grammar schools, had high level political patronage, and also accepted "non-local" pupils. This was "the start of a new kind of school".Elizabeth I refounded Westminster School in 1560, with new statutes, to select forty Queen's Scholars. This created a "triad" of privileged schools—Winchester, Eton and Westminster. From the 16th century onward, boys' boarding schools continued to be founded or endowed for public use.
Daniel Defoe in The Compleat English Gentleman of 1728, writes of "the great schools of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Felsted, Bishop Stortford (sic), Canterbury and others, where the children—nay, the eldest sons—of some of the best families in England have been educated."
By the end of the 17th century, the London day schools St Paul's and Merchant Taylors', together with the charitable foundations of Christ's Hospital and Charterhouse, had developed an elevated "standing in popular regard".
By the end of the 18th century, two local grammar schools, Harrow and Rugby, had achieved national fame. In the case of Harrow, political sponsorship by aristocratic Whig politician James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos) played a significant role, but also, as was the case too with Rugby, an exemplary headmaster was a key factor in raising the status of the school. This phenomenon was also seen at Shrewsbury, where Samuel Butler was headmaster between 1798 and 1836.
In 1801 William Vincent, headmaster of Westminster published A Defence of Public Education. It contains the text "...comprize under the expression of Public Schools? Are we to understand only Winchester, Eton and Westminster? or are we to extend our notion, as we ought to do, to the other three great schools in the Metropolis; to Harrow, Rugby, Manchester, Wakefield and many more of equal magnitude in the North?"
In 1816 Rudolph Ackermann published a book which used the term "History of the Public Schools" of what he described as the "principal schools of England", entitled The History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster; with the Charter-House, the Schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors, Harrow, and Rugby, and the Free-School of Christ's Hospital.
In 1818 Nicholas Carlisle published a two-volume survey entitled A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales. The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire sent to the schools. The description of 475 schools range from one or two paragraphs to many pages of detail. Included in the survey are the renowned nine schools which forty three years later became the subject of the 1861 Clarendon Commission.
In 1828 Thomas Arnold became headmaster of Rugby School. The reforming actions he took during his fourteen years (1828–1842) of tenure established a new model for the nineteenth and early twentieth century public school. Arnold developed the praepostor (or prefect) system, in which a group of senior boys were given disciplinary powers of other pupils. This became a standard method to establish good order in the public schools, which had developed a reputation for rowdiness and on occasion, serious disorder.
King's College School was founded in 1829 and University College School in 1830. Separate preparatory schools (or "prep schools") for younger boys developed from the 1830s, with entry to the senior schools becoming limited to boys of at least 12 or 13 years old. The first of these was Windlesham House School, established with support from Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School between 1828 and 1841.

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