[geeks] geeks Digest, Vol 86, Issue 11

[Mike Meredith]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:12:34 -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> Tuition is not tax-payer funded, it is a fee payable by parents of
> children, not contributed to by those who choose to not avail
> themselves of the school...

Many early public schools fit somewhere between the private sector and
the state sector. Most (all?) charged a tuition fee to those that could
afford it, but should have provided education free to those who could
not afford those tuition fees[0]. However in many cases they would also
have been setup with some sort of endowment to supplement the tuition
fee income.

In the case of Boston Latin School (reading their history web page)
shows that "From the earliest years the town assigned public funds to
the support of the school". And it doesn't mention tuition fees.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if they were charged ... it was
commonly the case that a nominal tuition fee was charged to emphasise
the value of an education.

> Was the school compulsory or available?

BLS? No idea. Seems that some places passed laws making some level of
education compulsory though.

> A land-grant is a one-time gift, not on-going support.

Well ... it was commonly intended to be equivalent to on-going support.
Land after all, if well managed should provide some level of income.

And a 'private' school that operates on land gifted by the government
can hardly be said to be a purely private sector school.

>
> > And just what Thomas Paine book are we talking about anyway ? The
> > most popular one I can think of ("The Rights Of Man") was a
> > run-away success
> > in _England_ as it was published in _England_, where those who read
> > it were taught under the _English_ education system.
>
> Common Sense - it was to be found in most colonial homes before the
> revolution.

That'll save me from hunting for the Amish porn on the wrong book!

0: The English "public schools" (which most of the world would call
   "private schools") were historically funded by both endowments
   (quite often tithe or land endowments ... Winchester College is
   still a very substantial land owner) and tuition fees by those able
   to pay. Their charters frequently include a requirement to educate
   children of the poor although the language is probably sufficiently
   vague that today their relief for the poor amounts to 15% off the
   per term fees of in the region of B#10,000. I certainly couldn't
   afford to educate a single child at the cost of B#25,500 a year, and
   I'm certainly not poor.