I have long realized that I will never understand the British class system, with its social and educational corollaries, any more than I will understand cricket, and this was driven home to me by Daisy Hildyard’s story “Revision” (archived) in last week’s New Yorker. My problems begin with the very title, which comes up in the story when Petra barges in on the protagonist, Gabriel, who is too distracted to pay close attention to her self-absorbed chatter:
His eyes went to his laptop screen.
Petra followed his gaze. “How is your revision going?”
“Fine,” he said. “Great.”
There was a long silence that didn’t seem to bother her. She drank deeply, then sighed comfortably, like a tired pet, and settled her back against the wall.
“Actually, it’s a disaster,” he said. “I know I’m close to doing well, but I have this one paper on medieval literature that I just don’t get. I can’t get a first if I don’t do well in that paper.”
I had a feeling that the word was used differently across the pond, and the OED (entry revised 2010) told me the following:
I.3. Education. The action or process of going over a subject or work already learnt or done with the aim of reinforcing it, typically in preparation for an examination; an instance of this.
Not in North American use: cf. review n. I.8.
So it’s “studying for exams,” but with extra pressure? I know things are very different at Oxford than at American educational institutions, but despite having read Anthony Powell and watched every episode of Inspector Morse and Endeavour, I only have a hazy idea of how it works.
However, that’s not what drove me to post. Here’s the passage that requires explication:
Gabriel walked around the college, searching for June in the library, and then the common room, and then the canteen, and she was there, sitting alone at a long-top table with a paper cup of coffee, a library book, and an unopened packet of chocolate biscuits. Gabriel sat wordlessly beside her. June closed the book, opened the biscuits, and offered them to him; he took one and placed it on the table in front of him. She tapped the book cover, on which there was an image of James Joyce leaning on his cane. “Why do all the male critics lose their minds about the fact that Molly’s speech gives voice to the common woman, when in fact she is an avatar of Joyce’s barely literate wife, scripted by Joyce?”
This was not exactly a question. June spoke quietly and thoughtfully, staring out into the vacant dining hall before them, then looked sideways—seemingly registering Gabriel’s presence for the first time—and shook her head. “Never mind. You won’t get it.”
Gabriel picked up the biscuit and ate it slowly so that he did not need to reply. June often acted as if he had no sense of politics or identity or the bitter reality beyond the college walls, to which the undergraduates occasionally, with vague reverence, referred. In tutorials, she spoke over and around him, addressing their supervisor directly whenever matters of race, class, or gender, politics or justice, arose—which they did, when June was speaking. The punch line was that June herself had gone to private school. This joke was one that Gabriel had heard on repeat through the past three years, and it didn’t make him laugh anymore.
I know that “public school” in the UK is what we Yanks call “private school,” but I have no idea what “private school” implies, or why June’s having gone to private school is a joke. Any help gratefully etc.
The implication is just that June herself has had a privileged education, so her prolier-than-thou airs are unjustified.
UK private schools are typically very expensive, and only a fairly small proportion of children go there. The products of such schools have a vastly better chance of getting to Cambridge or Oxford. “Private school” in the UK suggests such an elite establishment, not a religious school, still less anything smacking of home-schooling (regarded here as deeply weird and unBritish.)
Oxbridge admissions tutors are occasionally accused by right-wingers of discriminating against candidates from private schools. This is (in a sense) actually true: the remit of admissions tutors is to select the candidates with the best academic prospects, and they (being neither fools nor ill-informed) know that the initial academic advantage of private-school hothouse products decays after their first year as undergraduates. Someone with equivalent school grades from a state (i.e. non-private) school is likely (all things being equal) to have greater potential in the longer run. Admissions tutors know this and make their decisions accordingly, though it still doesn’t even the balance.
It’s confusing for Brits too, especially those of us who only went to comps. More or less:
A private school is a school you pay to attend. It’s a private business.
Public schools are older. You still pay to attend, but unlike other schools of the the era, were open to all: that’s how they were public. (I’d guess the comparison is to schools run by churches or guilds, or charity schools for local communities).
A grammar is a selective school, which you need to pass an exam at 11 years old to attend. There are some state funded ones left.
A comp, or comprehensive, is what you’d call a public school: a local school, with no fees or selection, open to all, and paid for by local and central government.
That was the case in the 80s, anyway. Now there are also ‘academies’, run by private businesses, that compete with comprehensives.
—
Edit. And like everything here, class comes into it. Almost the entire ruling class and traditional upper class attend public schools.
The professional middle classes get educated at private schools, grammar schools, and selective academies.
The lower classes go to comps.
“Revision” in this sense is just normal UKanian for working for an exam after the formal teaching has finished. It’s not anything to do with Oxford in particular, or indeed with universities. You revise for school exams too. It doesn’t imply any more pressure than is entailed by the very nature of the situation; it’s quite neutral.
As so often, it never occurred to me that Americans don’t say that.
I’ve (as an American who may be missing things) been given the impression, possibly false but supported by wikipedia, that English public schools are, while private, a subset of all private schools in that other private schools might restricts admissions to, for example, a certain geographic area, while the public schools were nominally open to any student who wished to pay the fees and so forth. Of course, in practice, the public schools are elite so good luck getting in if you’re not elite, so to speak, but I suppose there can be other elite schools which don’t fill the ‘public school’ category intended.
David,
Hat‘s confusion is normal for Americans. A US “public school” = British “state school”. So we tend to think that US “private school” = British “public school”. However a US “private school” could be a British public, private or independent school. My understanding is that a British Public School really only means the very old elite schools like Eton and Harrow, not any private school.
AbbeylandsAlum: Thanks very much, that’s possibly the most concisely enlightening thing I’ve read on the subject! Now we’ll see how long I can remember it…
“Private school” in older UK usage actually meant what we hip young things now call a Prep School (i.e. a fee-paying private school for 5-11 year olds meant to get them into a Public School.)
I agree that “Public School” does suggest only an older subset of UK private schools. It wouldn’t include (for example) my own alma mater, which was only founded in 1124, and has (moreover) the overwhelming handicap of being in Scotland. Scots are not quite the thing.
The term actually has a quite specific history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Schools_Act_1868
Thank you!
I could happily go on, rant even, about the British education system at length. But in terms of the snobbery and humour of that excerpt, the joke is she is emphasising her progressive values and insights, but comes from a background of monied privilege.
But among the true elite, the public school educated Etonians, Harrovians, and Wykehamists studying PPE at Oxford, she would be treated with equal contempt. My dim recollection is that it’s those elites who came up with the insult NARG, not a real gentleman, but the internet tells me otherwise.
I knew a Wykehamist who was a L1 Welsh speaker once. He was a neurosurgeon*, though. So it all balances out in the end.
* They’re like orthopaedic surgeons, but with more self-esteem. If you can imagine it.
“Revising for exams” strikes me as a very common and normal expression on the European continent, used by many non-native English speakers probably regardless of what English variety their school courses were based on – or indeed by native US English speakers like myself who have been here for a long time.
I found AbbeylandsAlum’s post enlightening too. I was a grammar school boy in the pre-comprehensive era, when everyone took the 11+ exam; if you passed you went to a grammar school; if you failed you went to a secondary-modern. When comprehensive schools arrived (in time for my youngest brother), the division into sheep and goats was done away with.
I didn’t know that grammar schools of that sort still existed. Does it depend which part of the country you live in?
In addition, I was under the impression that public schools and private schools were the same thing, but if I understand correctly, the entrance requirements for a public school are (a) pass our exam, and (b) show us the money, whereas private schools dispense with the first step. Is that how it works?
Scotland, of course, is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
I think the issue here is that Americans like hat who are well aware that “public school” in the UK context means the very opposite of “public school” in AmEng are understandably taken aback when “private school” in the UK context means very much the same thing as :”private school” in AmEng. It’s a bait-and-switch of some sort.
The Elvis Costello song titled “Secondary Modern” is not really of the first rank of his work but it dates from the era (1980 specifically) when he was still so prolific and talented that even the rapidly-tossed-off second- and third-tier subsets of his oeuvre are really very very good.
From Perspective AI
Public schools in the UK are indeed a subset of private schools, which can be confusing given the terminology. Here’s a closer look at this relationship:
Public Schools as Elite Private Institutions
Public schools in the UK are actually among the most prestigious and exclusive private educational institutions. Despite their name, they are not public in the sense of being government-funded or open to all. Instead, they are fee-paying schools with a long and distinguished history5
. Key Characteristics:
They charge tuition fees, like other private schools
They are more selective in their admissions process
They often have a longer history and stronger traditions
They are strongly associated with the upper classes
Historical Context
The term “public school” in the UK has its roots in the 18th century. It became formalized with the Public Schools Act 1868, which investigated and reformed seven of the most prestigious schools of the time, including Eton, Harrow, and Rugby6
.
Distinction from Other Private Schools
While all public schools are private, not all private schools are public schools. The main differences lie in:
Prestige and History: Public schools are typically older and more renowned.
Selectivity: They often have more rigorous admission processes.
Governance: Many public schools are members of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, a distinction not all private schools share4
.
Confusion with Terminology
The term “public school” can be misleading, especially for those outside the UK:
In many countries, including the US, “public school” refers to government-funded schools.
In the UK, government-funded schools are called “state schools.”
The term “public” in this context refers to these schools being open to the public (as opposed to being restricted to a particular group), provided they can pay the fees6
.
Understanding this distinction is crucial when navigating the UK education system, as public schools represent a specific, elite subset within the broader category of private education.
I read some of the replies, above, to my British wife and asked for comments.
She mostly agreed with AbbeylandsAlum, but then started fulminating about
how a test at age 11 essentially condemned loads of kids to limited educational
options.
And then, of course, came the discussion of A levels and O levels and the class system
and I had to short circuit the diatribe with a dumb Merikan remark.
LH, it may help to think of revise as the English equivalent of repasar en español.
“Revision” in this sense is just normal UKanian for working for an exam after the formal teaching has finished. It’s not anything to do with Oxford in particular, or indeed with universities. You revise for school exams too. It doesn’t imply any more pressure than is entailed by the very nature of the situation; it’s quite neutral.
As so often, it never occurred to me that Americans don’t say that.
We study for exams. Revise would be… honestly, in a school context it would sound like somebody who likes to show off their vocabulary is telling you that you need to rewrite an essay.
That was the case in the 80s, anyway. Now there are also ‘academies’, run by private businesses, that compete with comprehensives.
Sounds like US Charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded and do not have the results they like to claim.
I hear the “study” sense of revise from foreign students all the time. My impression is that it is especially common among students from South Asia, whose English language instruction had a particularly British slant.
My idea of what a “public school” was wasn’t quite right either.
There’s always the legendary Ben Carson.
A nice illustration of two transatlantic differences:
1) UK is something to do with = US has something to do with (as in German and French; I suspect reanalysis after h-dropping in the UK)
2) university is a subset of school in the US but not elsewhere.
fulminating about how a test at age 11 essentially condemned loads of kids to limited educational options
Very true. It was always said (note the deliberate use of the passive voice) that if you went to a secondary modern and did better than expected, you could apply to be admitted to the grammar school. In principle, yes. In practice, never. Not to my knowledge, anyway.
In my town, the grammar school was just down the road from the secondary modern. I had to bike past, in my uniform, on the way there and back home. The two classes were even then in a state of cold war — sneering, jeering, occasional throwing of stones. It was a great system.
I didn’t discover until many years later that the 11+ was essentially an IQ test of the old Stanford-Binet design. We didn’t get a numerical score, though, just pass/fail.
Here, in the western U.S., I’ve never met anyone who went to a prep school, a thing which I hear exists on the East Coast. They are as exotic to me as English public schools.
Lynne Murphy at Separated by a Common Language once confused her students by using “revision” in the not-specifically-British sense: “Earlier today, I left a message on a course website, instructing students to bring to the next session any questions they have about (among other things) ‘essay writing/revision’. This set off a panic in some that there might be an exam that they hadn’t yet known about.”
Not in North American use
It’s also not very old in British use: OED1 (1908) didn’t include this sense, so it must not have been very prominent yet, although the 2010 revision did find a couple of 19th-century examples. It was added in the 1982 Supplement, which neglected to make a note about region — they were less diligent about that in those days, and they still slip up sometimes, e.g. they have no regional label on “take a decision”.
you went to a secondary modern and did better than expected, you could apply to be admitted to the grammar school. In principle, yes. In practice, never. Not to my knowledge, anyway
I actually knew someone who did do this. Pretty exceptional, though, I agree.
I never sat the eleven-plus. My younger brother, for reasons I can no longer remember, did so (successfully) twice. Thus the cosmic balance was preserved.
I can remember BrE “revise” because it’s a doublet of “review”.
We don’t sit tests in America. My students don’t write tests either; I do that.
Which brings us to the paper that Gabriel didn’t get. That’s some kind of test, not an essay that the students write
in advancethe night before, right?@Y: What’s your definition of a prep school? There seem to be selective private schools on the West Coast–heck, there’s at least one in New Mexico. Are you restricting it to boarding schools?
I was confused by the Doomed Heroine in the so-bad-it’s-terrible movie Love Story continually calling her not-terminal yet terminally-boring boyfriend “preppy.” In UK terms, this would have implied an extremely age-inappropriate relationship, though that could hardly have made it any worse, really. In fact, it might have made the film rather less saccharine …
JF: Don’t ask me! They are mythical creatures. I understand the boys wear polo shirts (something having to with horses? Or alligators?)
There are some long-established boarding schools of more or less the New-England-prep-school genre in California, although they are admittedly much thinner on the ground out there, esp. proportionate to population. I had a college classmate who had attended this posh place in Pebble Beach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenson_School. Although he was not a boarder but one of the day students, living as he did in nearby and less-posh Salinas.
am i right in my vague-as-to-source memory that the “public” in british “public school” was originally meant to mark the distinction from the kind of at-home education that the aristocracy generally used – “private” in the sense of “personal/household” – and so roughly parallel to the “public” in “public house”?
I got called “preppy boy” for a while in college, because I had a blue textured-weave jacket. It didn’t look like any private school blazer I’ve ever seen though. And particularly annoying was that one of the people who called me that was an actual preppy.
@rozele:
Yes, exactly. This is not “public” as an antonym of “private” as in “enterprise.” The opposite of that kind of “private” is “state”, not “public.”
“Privately educated” was essentially Classical Brit for “home schooled.” With governesses; probably Jane Eyre. Nice young ladies were privately educated. Rough boys (even of good family) could be publically educated.
What kind of schooling did posh boys receive before they were old enough for public school? E. R. Eddison and Arthur Ransome were privately educated together, before they were shipped off to Eton and Rugby. C. S. Lewis was also privately tutored before his horrible years at the Wynyard school, and J. R. R. Tolkien was homeschooled by his mother up until her death.
In Jane Eyre, Rochester intends to ship his ward Adèle off to school when things become romantic between her guardian and her governess. I thought that was pretty cold, although it subsequently turns out to be a necessity, after Jane departs, the house burns down, and Rochester goes blind.
What kind of schooling did posh boys receive before they were old enough for public school?
That would be a prep school, the age profile (7–12) being much younger than an American prep school.
UK public schools were till recently all-boys boarding schools; “independent school” is a modern term for a somewhat broader subset of private school. The neologism strikes me as attempting to avoid the elitism of the older label, plus any doubt as to whether a given school qualifies; the “independent schools” as a lobby group are taken seriously in a way the hopelessly toffish “public schools” no longer could.
AbbeylandsAlum, “The professional middle classes get educated at private schools, grammar schools, and selective academies. The lower classes go to comps.” is completely wrong in my experience.
There are very few grammar schools left, and none at all in Oxfordshire, where I live. They were abolished long ago by all-party consensus. So there are no ‘comps’, all state schools are just secondary schools.
All of the professional middle class parents that I know sent their children to the local secondary school. When you are early in your career, with a mortgage, it would be cripplingly expensive to do anything else unless you had rich parents.
These replies make private schools sound like “safety schools” — very expensive places for rich kids who aren’t smart enough for public schools? But that would seem to characterize June differently than the narrative.
@ David L:
Same here: I went to a comprehensive in the 1980s, and we used to fight (obviously) the kids who went to a Catholic school nearby.
@chuchuflete I read some of the replies, above, to my British wife and asked for comments.
She mostly agreed with AbbeylandsAlum, but then started fulminating about how a test at age 11 essentially condemned loads of kids to limited educational options.
This Brit (‘passed’ the 11-plus, went to grammar school then not-Oxbridge) would have fulminated similarly.
I’d also point out the condemning bright-but-not-academic kids who hated every minute at grammar school and left at the first opportunity with poor results that didn’t reflect their intellect but rather how they didn’t fit the class system. (They went on to either a life of crime or Real Estate Agent — same-same, having lost all opportunity for engineering.)
I actually knew someone who did do this. [secondary modern and did better than expected, you could apply to be admitted to the grammar school] Pretty exceptional, though, I agree.
I know someone too. The grammar school was already half a year ahead on the syllabus; then for subjects that build on prior material (like maths) there was a huge hole in their learning; so their ‘O’ level results were worse than if they’d stayed at secondary modern.
I failed the 11+ and was sent to a comprehensive school. There was no mention of transferring to a grammar school if one did well, so sadly my talent for staring out of the window went unrewarded.
My only experience of a grammar school was when I found myself in an inter-school quiz team. The afternoon foray into the world of the better educated was cut short when our team’s followers wrecked the host school’s lavatories. The inconveniences of class war, yer cud say.
@c baker, yes, academies and charter schools are very similar. Academies take schools out of local control. They’re not quite like US segregation academies (race works differently here, for one thing) but class does perhaps play a part in securing a place in one, and that indirectly links to race.
@jon, we should both take pride in our heritage of debating exactly where the lines of class lie. I was recollecting the broad situation 40 years ago. You’re right, with changes in property prices even many middle class families can’t afford private schools. And I think it is just Kent, perhaps, that still has grammars. But there’s still a clear hierarchy.
https://youtu.be/1E8mv6s6_fU?si=0u0oGu0_LoCkfIaj
@ryan, class sizes get smaller and facilities better the more you pay. Not always as much a safe option as you might think. In order to maintain high average grades, private, academy and selective schools will dissuade/bully kids out of taking exams if they aren’t going to get top marks.
On revision, I had wondered if it had something to do with the old medieval classical education, with its emphasis on memorising great chunks of classical texts. And that this wasn’t the case in the States, where the education system has more modern roots. ‘Revise’ suggests that memorising to me, while ‘study’, to me, includes reading lots of texts and synthesising your own ideas.
But that doesn’t make sense if @ktschwarz is right that it only dates back 100 years or so.
@rozele, the public in ‘public house’ means a room, traditionally in the ground floor of the publican’s home, that is open to all. So yes, a similar meaning.
In a pub, there would once have been snugs, public bars, saloons, and lounges, and maybe more. Class again comes into which one you would drink in, and there’s a substantial dash of misogyny too: unaccompanied women, or those waiting to help their drunken husbands home, would be expected to hide in the snug, and couples wouldn’t drink in the public bar, but only eat in the saloon.