What's the point of Hogwarts?

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 127760


The Point of Hogwarts

First as The Love Mut said, it is important to help a person with 
the gift of magic to understand that gift and to use it wisely. 
Someone could also ask what is the point of studying music or art.  
Magic is an art. And the WW in not like the modern day MW.  Even the 
RW has not always been like the modern RW.  For example:

Once upon a time, not all *that* long ago.  A secondary education 
was all that most people got. And it prepared them for life in the 
real world, not for college. Very few went to college. Even today 
most people over 50 have not been to college.  Back in the dark ages 
of the 1940-mid 60's girls learned to cook and sew. They learned 
things like math so that they could shop without getting ripped off. 
All teens learned to read and appreciate the classics and grammar 
was taught!  Boys learned to fix things and make useful things like 
furniture. (Girls joined Future Homemakers of American and Boys 
Future Farmers of America.) In the 1940-60's in the U.S. a High 
School education was the highest that 80% of the population had.  
Before that many did not even go past the old country school house 
(8th grade).  (The standards were higher than they are today, so a 
high school diploma was about the same as an Associates is now 
days.)  

Whatever the job was that you had as an adult you learned on the 
job.  I know that is not true today, but it use to be.  There was 
more factory work then, but even office work did not require a 
college education.  You could be a banker, bookkeeper, own a 
business, be a Real Estate Broker, a policeman, member of the 
Congress, etc. with just a high school education.  Only Doctors, 
Lawyers, nurses, and teachers needed to go to college. 

The WW is, as we have all observed in many other ways, of a 
different era.  It may be operating in the late 20th century of 
Muggle time, but I think that when Harry goes to Hogwarts he also 
goes into another earlier time. 

I think that I may have hit upon something here.  The reason the 
younger folks on this list may have a problem with some of the 
things that go on in the social structure of the WW is that they did 
not live through the same *time* in the RW.  While those of us that 
are the age of DD are more tolerant of the WW because we use to live 
there.  ;-)

Back to Hogwarts and Wizard kids.  They don't seem to want to work 
in the Muggle world and don't need the same type of education as a 
Muggle.  We don't see all that much of modern life in the MW either, 
except for Dudley's computer.  Maybe the MW of JKR doesn't have the 
same educational structure that the U.S. does in 2005.  

Besides why would a wizard want to live in the MW anyway??  Even in 
RL in 2005 U.S.A. there are whole groups of people that do not go to 
college.  Some like the Amish don't even go past the 8th grade and 
don't even have electricity.  Many other groups live very simple 
lives and are happy with that. There is a whole big world out there 
and many different paths.  I love the WW and would stay there 
forever if I could.

Tonks_op