HWGA -- Number of students

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6947
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: HWGA -- Number of students
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6889] Re: HWGA -- Number of students
Date: 8/15/00 10:10 pm  (ET)

> >>Without having gone farther into the numbers, a student body as
small as 300 argues a society so small with a birthrate so low it isn't
sustainable.<<

Numbers for the British Isles: I continue to believe that there must
be a birthrate of 120-150 a year and therefore 800-1000 student body to
have (times 100 year average lifespan) a population of 12,000 to 15,000,
which seems about right to support the amount of businesses we have seen,
altho' not the HUNDREDS of professoonal Quidditch teams that appear in
fanfic. Maybe they are really dedicated amateur Quidditch teams?

However, I acknowledge that Hogwarts might be currently underpopulated
because of the people who were killed during the Death Eater Wars and
therefore didn't have children (as well as the ones who lived but didn't
have children). [Just How Many wizarding people did V kill?????] That's
why I think that the MoM should be making an effort to build up the
population by encouraging wizarding families to have more children by
giving parents a subsidy for each child they are raising who is still
in secondary school. Which would also help the Weasleys' finances.

As long as I'm talking about Weasley finances, and someone wondered
why Arthur, as head of a department at MoM, didn't get a good salary, I
think it might be that MoM pays it managerial staff itty-bitty salaries
because it expects only people who have inherited family fortunes to
take those jobs.

> Not necessarily. Remember, there are at least two other European schools
that we know of now, and it was implied (I think) that these were just
the major schools, so there could be others. That does not account for
schools in other parts of the globe as well.

They seem to have one school per "country" (if all the French speaking
countries are one country, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and German
Empire add up to one country!). The schools in other countries don't do
a whole lot to increase the wizarding population of the British Isles.

> And we are already aware of the fact that wizard children might be
born of muggle parents, thus the society is being regenerated even if
you were to kill off every living one of them today.

If, God forbid, every living wizard and witch was killed off, how many
centuries would it take for the muggle-born magic kids to realize what
they were and figure out how to get together, and then how many more
centuries to re-discover what was formerly known about magic (such as
how to make wands!) and to re-invent all the spells and potions? There
is a reason why wizarding kids have to study in school instead of just
waving a wand around!