Fedora Servers :: Setting Up Tomcat Per-user (/home/username/public_html Executing Of JSPs)?

I'm sorry if this has been posted already but I REALLY did look and couldn't find the same issue(s) addressed anywhere. Similar, but not similar enough, in my opinion, to barge in and switch the subject.

Ok, I have Apache httpd set up so I can use a public_html folder inside of my /home/username directory. Now, I'm about to take a web dev course that teaches JSP/Servlets for building web applications and I'd like to set my environment up so that I can execute .jsps from my web root (/home/username/public_html) just like I would a CGI or PHP script. I have a web host that will give me JSP support for a few extra bucks a month, but I'd rather do it locally... and free.

I have Tomcat installed and running wonderfully. The test page and all the examples work fine and execute immediately. But when I try to execute a .jsp file inside of my web root (/home/username/public_html) I just get the raw Java tags and plain-old HTML rendered in my browser. I pretty much knew that wouldn't work; that'd be way too easy. I just wanted to see what would happen.

I looked through all the tomcat ".conf" files I could find to see if it was similar to setting up httpd inside of my home directory, but I didn't have any luck. It's not a file permissions problem... I've been messing with web "scripts" long enough to check that the files are executable. All of the files needed (borrowed from the examples that come with Tomcat) were in their correct paths inside of my web root, as well. Added :8080 to the end of localhost (like you do to see the Tomcat test page(s) instead of the httpd test page) but that didn't help.

I scoured the web for directions but could only find one solution that was Ubuntu-specific (just install tomcat6-user-something-or-another.deb, which doesn't exist in the Fedora repos), then I looked around here, trying every search term that seemed reasonable to me, and I can't find anything.

I realize I can just write the code and put it in a directory that does allow these things to be executed (var/lib/tomcat6/blah-blah-blah/going-by-memory) and run them from there, but I'd like to be able to just keep all of my web files in the same place; a place where I have full permission to do whatever I want... my home directory public_html.

Is this possible (has to be, right?)? Is this a dumb idea to begin with (I'm prone)? What is the best way to develop JSP/Servlets without having to deal with permissions every time I want to put a new script in a directory outside of my home directory that's already set up to allow the execution of said script?