Hogwarts Upkeep (or Hogwarts, a Financial History)

[alhewison]

No: HPFGUIDX 36458

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "abigailnus" <abigailnus at y...> wrote:
> Well, you'd think after flying directly in the face of canon (see 
my not-yet-
> 12-hours-old post on whether Lucius Malfoy was at school with LV) 
I'd be 
> a bit timid about posting.  Luckily, this question has almost no 
grounding in 
> canon and so the potential for embarassing myself is low (ah! A 
challenge!).  
> Nevertheless, any person reading this post does so at his or her 
own risk 
> and with the full understanding that the information contained 
herein may 
> be (1) wrong (2) silly (3) very wrong and very silly or (4) the 
secret to life, 
> the universe and everything which will make your brain shut down 
and ooze 
> out of your ears.  You have been warned.


>  not requiring an attendance fee.  My only problem with this is 
that Hogwarts 
> is *old*.  The sorting hat song from GoF states that it was 
created "a thousand 
> years or more ago" and Professor Binns says something to that 
effect in CoS.  
> There wasn't even an England a thousand years ago, much less a 
national 
> government - are we to assume that wizards were so ahead of muggles 
in the 
> field of centralized government that they were able to arrange for 
public 
> education for their children?  I suppose it's not out of the realm 
of possibility, 
> but it doesn't make much sense (although I suppose it is possible 
that Hogwarts 
> was "nationalised" at some point in the past 1000 years.)
> Abigail
> 

I was really interested in your post, and fully accept that there 
were not "muggle" schools founded in England 1,000 years ago paid 
from taxes. However, I'm very confused about your comment about 
England not existing at that time.

If you mean an English state with a centralised Government and 
accountable parliament, then no it didn't -although the "English" had 
begun to "unify" under Alfred the Great in the late 9th Century.(I 
know that's a contentious statement, and apologise as it probably 
belongs off-topic) But I'm not sure that this matters in the context 
of Hogwarts - which afterall accepts Scottish and Irish children (and 
presumably Welsh) and must have evolved over the past 1000 years - 
even if its spirit remains true to its founders.

That a School could be born from a benevolent donation but evolve 
into a state run - or private run establishment seems to me to be 
practical and logical. Evolving just as Muggle society evolved around 
it. I certainly know of schools in Britain that evolved from 
Foundations into state schools when these began to exist. (This 
happened with my own school although it later becam private just to 
confuse the issue!).

I understood that Dumbledore was allowed so much freedom at Hogwarts 
was not due to the fact that Hogwarts wasn't closely related or 
dictated to by the MOM, but simply because Dumbledore was Dumbledore. 
In other words it was his personality rather than the school itself 
which warranted the independence.

Have I just mudded the waters still further?

Ali