[HPforGrownups] Is education a right or a privilege in WW?

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 102831

Alla quoted:
>"Question:
>How can two Muggles have a kid with magical powers? Also how does the
>Ministry of Magic find out these kids have powers?
>
>A. It's the same as two black-haired people producing a redheaded
>child. Sometimes these things just happen, and no one really knows
>why! The Ministry of Magic doesn't find out which children are magic.
>In Hogwarts there's a magical quill which detects the birth of a
>magical child, and writes his or her name down in a large parchment
>book. Every year Professor McGonagall checks the book, and sends owls
>to the people who are turning 11. "

>I think the last sentence implies that every magical child gets
>Hogwarts letter.

Thanks for posting that, I'd wondered for a while about the exact wording of
the question that JKR answered.

Remember that she's answering a question about how _Muggle-born_ children
get discovered for Hogwarts, not about _all_ WW children. That makes sense
to me. If a child has a Muggle parent, then they will not necessarily have
grown up with the ability to survive in the WW, they just wouldn't have the
right mindset to move from a world where things are done using technology
and within the limits of technology to a world in which magic is the key.
They don't know the history, the culture, even the language. Perhaps this
was one of the debates that the Founders had around who should go to
Hogwarts, back in the 10th century.

But it allows for a situation where not all WW children go there. As far as
they are concerned, it appears to be an elite school where it's expected
that the children of the aristocracy go, as well as the more talented
children of the bureaucracy, the ones who are likely to aim for a career in
the Ministry or some other professional function.

This in turn brings up two questions in my mind:

1. Does the fact that Muggleborns and aristocrats are side by side at the
same school foster the "Them and us" attitude among the "pure blood"
faction? Bearing in mind the size of Hogwarts compared to the size of the WW
and the fact that the number of Muggleborn children is pretty insignificant,
might this be so?

2. Conversely, does the fact that all Muggleborn children go to an elite
school of Witchcraft and Wizardry give them a higher relative profile in the
WW by virtue of the fact that they are more likely to end up in visible
positions as adults? Could this also feed anti-Muggleborn prejudice?

But JKR alone knows all

Cheers

Ffred

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