What is the difference between a Public school, and a Private school ?

[recall]

Just been having a discussion about this, and we didn't know.

Traditionally the term Public School was used to refer to the well known schools that were originally established to educate "the public" rather than simply the aristocracy.

The Public Schools Act 1868 listed the Public Schools as
Charterhouse
Eton
Harrow
Merchant Taylors
Rugby
Shrewsbury
St Pauls
Westminster
Winchester

I believe City of London was added at to the list at a later date.

These days the term is often used as shorthand for those schools that belong to the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference.

All Public Schools are Private Schools but not all Private Schools are Public Schools

Thanks Chaz.

About three or four hundred years....
HMC is not shorthand for public school,lots of its members are nothing more than second rate private schools,
Its one of those questions that has no definitive answer but broadly speaking public schools are the long established known schools,private the rest,but as has been said all public schools are private but not all private schools are public,if you have to ask if a certain school is public it prob isnt,you just know...

Nothing. The 'public' in public school was originally relative to children of aristocrats with their own personal teachers. Until the foundation of the first public schools, education didn't happen in public at all. Some time later the need for education became sufficiently widespread that state-funded schools were created; arguably they're a lot more public than what we call public schools, but the name has just stuck. In the USA public school refers to state schools.