charity school

noun

, U.S. History.

an elementary school, usually funded by charitable persons or organizations, for those unable to pay: a forerunner of the public-school system.

First recorded in 1675–85

If her teaching was no better than her looks, Miss Lucy might as well go to the parish charity school!

In Cross Street there is an old charity school, with stuccoed figures of a charity boy and girl on the frontage.

We had a great many fights with the street boys and the boys of a neighbouring charity school.

Eleanor is no more fitted to be trusted with such an amount of money in her own hands than is a charity-school girl.

Elsewhere he found in the choir gallery an ‘exhausted charity school’ of four boys and two girls.

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