Late Start to Magical Education (Was: Re: WQ)

[Steve <bboy_mn@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 53127

Sorry, but I've snipped the entire post. The thrust is that logic
would seem to indicate that magic kids should be much father ahead of
muggle kids when they first come to Hogwarts, and various people had
various explainations. 

But, I don't think they put enough emphasis on the fact that these
kids are 11 years old. 

So Molly uses magic in the kitchen, so what. My mother uses her own
brand of motherly magic to make delicious pies from scratch, and I can
assure you that at 11 I had no interest in or knowledge of how these
pies got make. All I wanted was to eat them. Plus most mothers
expecially of large families do not need a dozen kids hanging around
the kitchen while they are trying to work. Basically, it 'go out and
play until I call you for supper'. 

How many muggles really know what their dad does for a living? I don't
mean as in 'my dad builds roads'. I mean exactly what does he have to
do to get these roads built. My dad alway took us out for a Sunday
drive to see the roads he was currently working on and even sometimes
let us ride along in his road grader. So even with that close up
knowledge, I still didn't really know how to build roads. 

When I was in early grade school, my grandfather let me and my brother
come out with him in his road grader while he maintained the county
roads, and even let us drive it. REALLY! Drive it for substantial
distances out on the open gravel country roads. That's a big thrill
for a little kid. But I still didn't understand it. It was a big loud
machine with row and rows of magic levers and massive amounts of
horsepower. What a thrill! But I still didn't understand it, and if I
had gotten a job building roads, I would have been pretty much
starting from scratch. 

Why would magic kids be any different? I certainly knew more about
heavy construction equipment than most kids, but that would have been
worth  very little when I start heavy construction equipment school at
age 11.

See my point here? 

True some kids take an out of the ordinary interest like Snape or
Hermione, but most kids are outside running and playing with their
brothers and their friends, and what magic they see is just and
ordinary part of daily life. They don't need to know how to make white
sauce come out of a wand, as long as when it's time to eat, Mum has a
bowl of white sauce on the table.

Just my opinion.

bboy_mn