Imitating Their Betters and Disassociating from Their Inferiors: Grammar Schools and the Games Ethic in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.

The article discusses public education in Great Britain in the 19th century, focusing on the public schools known as grammar schools. The transformation of several such schools into the private schools known as endowed public schools is considered as a part of the trend of the spread of the idea of the so-called "games ethic," a belief in the importance of sports and physical education as part of curricula, throughout British education of the period. It is noted that failing grammar schools frequently became highly successful endowed public schools. This is attributed to the growth of the country's middle class, who were attracted to the values those schools represented.