Wizard Population and Other Schools

[Audra1976 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47137

bboy_mn at yahoo.com writes:
<< *IF* we start with the *supposition* that the wizard economy indicates
a *fairly large* population *then* we must reconcile the missing
students. So starting out accepting the *supposition* for sake of
arguement and illustration, I have given a plausable argument
accounting for those missing students. >>

Right, there's no evidence in the books that there are alternative means of 
education for wizards besides Hogwarts, so this is all supposition.  I agree 
with bboy_mn when he says that logically, the inns, the bank vaults, the 
businesses, etc. would indicate a larger wizarding population than the 
children at Hogwarts and their families reflect--especially considering that 
the wizarding population would be growing, if wizard families are marrying 
into muggle families more.  Well, we all know this is just a made-up world, 
and JK Rowling can invent as many inns and businesses as she wants even if 
there's not enough people in her world that would be needed to keep them 
successfully running in the real world.  But it's fun to speculate about what 
might be out there in that world that Harry (who is basically our narrator) 
still does not know about.

I like to think that there are other smaller institutions of learning in the 
WW.  We know the Founders were pioneers in setting up a school for wizards 
1000 years ago, but I can't imagine that nobody else has done it in the years 
since--nothing as big as Hogwarts, but I can imagine, for example, a small 
private witches academy somewhere in the British isles, or the idea of 
witches or wizards that take on single apprentices (they could have maybe 10 
apprentices over the course of a lifetime), or maybe sharing magical 
knowledge and philosophy in small schools of young people along the lines of 
Socrates'.  Maybe some young witches and wizards are home-schooled.

Another idea of mine comes from the way that religious education was done 
where I grew up (and maybe this concept is strictly American, I don't know, 
not being that worldly-wise).  Catholic children went to the public school 
along with everyone else, but they are not allowed to teach religion there 
(separation of Church and state), so the Catholic children would get together 
after school and on weekends and receive their own special classes in 
religion somewhere else.  So maybe in other cities that have a wizarding 
population integrated with a muggle population, the young wizards and witches 
go to muggle schools along with their peers (to blend in, so the muggles 
won't be suspicious), and they also get special instruction in magic from one 
or maybe a group of wizards, meeting in a secret place so many hours a week.  

Audra