Childhood Wizards (added: Quidditch)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 1381

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Sam  Brown" <find_sam at h...> wrote:
> Hogwarts is obviously THE school for wizards, but only after
> they're  eleven. What do wizard children (that is, children of
> wizarding families) do before then? Are there special wizarding 
> primary/elementary schools for younger tots? 

I believe that there are wizarding primary schools.

> They can't go to a Muggle school because wizard children are often
> using basic magic from a very young age (eg, Fred and George turned
> Ron's teddy bear into a giant spider... 

I forget which twin it was, but he turned Ron's teddy into a giant 
spider in a fit of rage after Ron broke his toy broomstick, just as 
Harry flew to the roof of the school cafeteria while running away 
from Dudley's gang, and turned his teacher's wig blue. If Muggle 
schools can tolerate this from Muggle-born wizard kids, they can 
tolerate it from wizard-born kids. I imagine that most wizard parents 
would scorn to send their children to Muggle school, but some, 
Muggle-born themselves and/or unable to afford to send their child to 
wizard primary school, would send them to Muggle schools.

> It is more or less implied  that Hogwarts is the only school for 
> wizard children in the UK, so before the eleventh year children of
> wizarding they must be home schooled

I believe JKR meant: the only SECONDARY school for wizard children. 
HOWEVER: if Hogwarts is the only wizard secondary school, and there 
are only as many students at Hogwarts as JKR indicates (around 280), 
and the average lifespan of wizards is 100 years (as opposed to the 
Muggle average of 75 years), then the wizard population cannot be 
large enough to support the wizarding economy and society that JKR 
shows. One of those axioms must be false. 

FURTHER, even if we fix up a way for the population to be as big as 
JKR shows (maybe by assuming that the average wizarding lifespan is 
300 years and Dumbledore is actually 380 rather than 80), I still 
don't see how that population is large enough to support the number 
of professional Quidditch teams depicted, or to supply enough 
adequately-skilled players for that many teams. A partial solution 
would be that the teams are at best semi-pro; their gate receipts, 
refreshment sales, and government subsidy barely keeps them in 
broomsticks, uniforms, and enchanted balls, and the players have to 
support themselves from family money, other work, etc. 

> imagine what their Muggle parents must think, having what 
> they thought was an ordinary child doing some extraordinary things!

Didn't Colin Creevey say something about his parents having been 
relieved to learn that all those strange things he did were 'only' 
magic?