[HPforGrownups] Hogwarts population and Wizarding culture

[Aberforth's Goat]

No: HPFGUIDX 9761

> So about Hogwarts: in the Wizarding culture, the kids with the most
> inherent magic go to Hogwarts (they're the ones who the magic quill
> chooses), while the rest, with lesser magic abilities, are educated
> in other ways and apprentice into trades.

This makes perfect sense, of course. It is also similar to a continental
European style of secondary education. In Switzerland, universities accept
only the minority of students who complete a "Matura," generally at a school
called a "Gymnasium." Most Swiss teenagers go through a combined trade
school and apprenticeship. Hogwarts could be considered a "Gymnasium"--or an
academic institution for the future intelligentsia.

But is there any hard evidence for this? For instance, PoA says Stan is 18
or 19, which means he *is* old enough to have graduated at the bottom of the
Hogwarts class (and have been voted student most likely to endanger the
survival of the genus Bobotuberus).

Do you know of any evidence for a wizard who isn't a squib but didn't go to
Hogwarts?

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray)
_______________________

"My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practising
inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers,
but did Aberforth hide? No he did not! He held his head high."