British Preparatory Schools E-Book: Volume IV--Introduction
Figure 1.--Preparatory schools began appearing in the mid-19th century for younger children, initially boys. Because the purpose was to prepare the younger children for the public schools, they adopted a boarding system.
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Britain has some of the best known schools in the world, especially its public schools which are really elite private fee-paying schools schools. Some of the public schools date to the 16th century and were chartered by royal authority. Some have even older origins. The term public became used because entrance was open to the public as long as they could afford the school fees. This was before the modern public schools, mean state supported schools existed. Most public schools were founded as boarding schools. Over time the tradition of barding school education became firmly etrenched in British education. Boarding became more important in England than any other country. Quite a number of the public schools date to the 19th century when Britain was expanding its educational system to train administrators and technicials for its huge overseas empire. It was at this time that preparatory schools began to appear. Public schools originzlly taught boys of varying age, some quite young. Public schools could be very rough places, especially for younger boys. Educators by the early 19th century increasing realized that the educational needs of the younger boys required a school specifical suited for their needs. Thus the preparatory school was created, a school designed to prepare boys for the public schools. And the traditin of boarding was adopted in the preparaory schools. The educational history is discussed in volume I of our e-Book. Here we will focus on the boarding aspect. We will primarily discuss British preparatory schools, but we will add some information about the senior schools as well as some information about schools in Britain's former colonies.
