Tomorrow-Land

lately i've sorta realized how much of an anglophile i've become. i'm not sure why, but i've always had this deep interest in english culture. shit just fascinates me. one thing i never understood, though, was why they call their elite boarding schools "public schools." this just never made any sense to me. anway, here's an excerpt from wikipedia that i think explains it a bit...
"Until 1902 there were no publicly-supported secondary schools in England. Public schools were schools supported by an endowment, with a governing body, available to all members of the public, provided that they could pay for tuition costs. Private schools were run for private profit.[1] In recent years all schools formally called public schools now refer to themselves as independent schools, but the national press and many other still use the term public school when referring to independent schools, in particular the older, more prestigious fee-paying schools such as those mentioned in the Public Schools Act 1868: Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Westminster, Winchester, Merchant Taylors' and St. Paul's."