Yes, you're quite correct, but that leaves us with the problem that, if 40 students per year is normal, then there aren't enough people to account for the wizarding society we see outside of Hogwarts.
There would be a fair amount of fluctuation in class sizes from year to year that just naturally occurs in a population this small, but I'm not sure how large a fluctuation is reasonable.
There would very likely be a smaller percentage of muggle-borns in Harry's year than in the 1970's due to the fact that there was a baby boom in the UK in the 1960's. If there were four muggle-born in Harry's year, there would have been 5 or 6 muggle-born first years in 1975. But that's not enough of a difference to affect the overall class size all that much
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-04-01 05:27 am (UTC)There would be a fair amount of fluctuation in class sizes from year to year that just naturally occurs in a population this small, but I'm not sure how large a fluctuation is reasonable.
There would very likely be a smaller percentage of muggle-borns in Harry's year than in the 1970's due to the fact that there was a baby boom in the UK in the 1960's. If there were four muggle-born in Harry's year, there would have been 5 or 6 muggle-born first years in 1975. But that's not enough of a difference to affect the overall class size all that much