[HPforGrownups] pictures of the founders

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 95335

Carol wrote:
>I thought that the names of all of the magical children in Britain
>were written down with a magical quill when they were born and that
>all of those children were sent invitations to Hogwarts at (about) age
>eleven. The Stan Shunpikes of the WW might very well drop out at some

>egalitarian educator: If you're a British witch or wizard, regardless
>of blood or talent, you get the chance for a magical education. And as
>others have pointed out, wouldn't it be dangerous to have untrained
>witches and wizards around.

>Just wondering what your evidence is for this theory.

Inference rather than canon at all times!

We know, first of all, that Hogwarts has somewhere between 280 and 1000
students, and JKR has also said that around 25% of them are muggle-born.

But if _all_ WW children go to Hogwarts, it means that 25% of the WW
population have at least one muggle parent and are familiar with muggle
culture. But familiarity with muggle culture is actually very rare in the
WW. Even Arthur Weasley, with his fascination with muggles, gets it wrong
most of the time. Therefore the muggle admixture has to be sufficiently
small to allow the WW culture to survive with only small changes.

Secondly, if Hogwarts takes in the entire cohort of WW 11-17 year olds, it
means that the entire WW has a maximum of 20,000 inhabitants in the British
Isles, far too few to account for some of the features of the WW, for
example the daily newspaper with an evening edition together with a large
number of periodicals (Witch Weekly, the Quibbler, and so on), 15
professional quidditch teams, a radio station, a Ministry of sufficient size
to conceal all that magic, those magical creatures, and so on from the
muggles, and a sufficient presence when they go out on the streets to be
blatantly obvious to Vernon Dursley while he's driving to work! It would
also imply that the World Cup final had three times the entire population
attending. (Rugby's popular in my country with its 3 million population, but
that didn't mean that the world cup final 5 years ago had 15 million fans
attending!) So with that number of people, the number of children has to be
far larger than Hogwarts can accommodate on its own.

My theory (and it's not the only one on this list which solves the problem)
is that Hogwarts is a college of witchcraft and wizardry (as it describes
itself). So those children who need to learn it go there. That's all of the
muggle born ones (some of whom would be absolutely lost if flung into the
middle of a world that uses magic rather than technology) - I assume that
the "quill" records these children rather than being any sort of magical
register of births - and those students whose parents think that a knowledge
of and qualification in magic will be what they need for their future
careers - largely in the MoM, given the size of the ministry, its high
entrance requirement, and the number of Hogwarts students.

But JKR alone knows all

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri