11 Magical Schools

[oryx_leucoryx]

The recent Pottermore blurb about Durmstrang says, "Durmstrang once had the darkest reputation of all eleven wizarding schools, though this was never entirely merited." IOW there are 11 wizarding schools worldwide. I find this number surprisingly small, considering that the magical population served by Hogwarts comes from a population of roughly 64 million (UK) plus 4.7 million (Ireland) totaling some 69 million, out of a global population of about 7 billion, so just under 1%. I was expecting there to be several dozens of schools, not fewer than one dozen. (Yes, we only knew about 2 other schools in Europe, but surely those were merely the oldest ones, and additional schools could have been founded over the centuries?)

So how do we reconcile these?

If the proportion of magical to non-magical people in the UK is typical, then one possibility is that other schools have about 10 times the student body of Hogwarts, supporting the impression some readers here have of Hogwarts as a magical backwater.

Alternatively, it is possible that some parts of the world do not use wizarding schools as the way to pass on magical education. It is possible that some areas rely on home-education, private tutors serving improvised small groups of children, or apprenticeships with locally famous wizards. Perhaps some traditional societies still have magical folk living openly within the local non-magical community, with no requirement for separate education, just specific training in magic with a local adult wizard on top of whatever education is typically available in that community.

Or perhaps the UK and Ireland have an exceptionally high proportion of magical folk, and there really aren't all that many wizards in the world. Or other wizarding communities don't make an effort to include every magical child in their educational system as Hogwarts does with the quill. We are told (by Draco) that Durmstrang doesn't educate Muggleborns. Perhaps anyone who doesn't have parents that know about the magical school or whose parents don't make an effort to get their child into the magical school doesn't learn there. Not only Muggleborns, but also orphans like Tom Riddle (or only orphaned of their magical parent, like Dean), children of parents who didn't like the school or disagree with how it is run, children of neglectful parents, children of parents who lack the means to provide transportation, and so forth. In this case, there may be many undiscovered wizards within non-magical society, while the magical society outside of the UK and Ireland would be significantly more inbred.

What is your preferred scenario?

Also, where do you think these schools should be located?

In this blog post Andrew claims:

However, Goblet of Fire does also briefly mention an unnamed Brazilian wizarding school, where Bill Weasley once had a pen pal. In Wonderbook: Book of Potions, which also includes new content written by J.K. Rowling (as both Book of Spells and Book of Potions were created through an extension of Sony’s “Pottermore partnership” with Rowling), we also learn of a wizarding school in Japan named the “Mahoutokoro School of Magic” (see the Harry Potter Wikia), as well as one in Russia and another in South Africa, the names of which I was not quite able to catch while playing this game.

If we accept the details then the Russian school may be a 4th European school, or it may be somewhere in Siberia. IMO there should be more Asian schools, maybe in Tibet or Nepal, serving wizards from China, India and other parts of eastern and southern Asia. Then there should be a school serving wizards from the Middle East and northern Africa, perhaps with connections to the alchemy center in Alexandria. No Quidditch in this school, but they may race flying carpets. Probably 2 schools in the Americas?

Any thoughts?

Comments

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Rather a long time ago I tried to esitmate magical population. It's ultimately a futile exercise since nothing that Rowling says about the subject makes any kind of sense or fits what she shows us in the books. The essay is on Red Hen at:

www(dot)redhen-publications(dot)com/wizpopulation(dot)html

Her *claim* that there are some 3000 witches and wizards in the UK is nonsense. It is even greater nonsense if we accept her claim that there are 600 students at Hogwarts. But then we know that Rowling has no sense of proportion.

Although, if the magical population of Great Britain *is* as low as 3000 it would explain how Albus Dumbledore ended up with all those honors and ceremonial offices. A population of 3000 doesn't give you much of a "talented tenth" to parcel out all of the leadership positions *to* does it?

But in any event, unless Great Britain's magical population is vastly higher or lower than that of the rest of the world, I ended up extrapolating a worldwide magical population of something under half a million (something like 320,000). Of whom those of school age would be a mere seven 1-year cohorts within an extrapolated age range of 0-120.

It still comes to more than 11 schools of the size that Rowling claims Hogwarts to be and never actually showed us.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

30,000 would be impossible to hide in the kind of nooks and crannies that magicals hide in.

On the other hand, the standard of living that we see requires substantially more than the 3000 she claims. I'd be more inclined to put it at up to 10,000, but assuming a projected lifespan of 150 years that would indicate a school-aged population of 450-500 which would fit what she has to say about Hogwarts size, but never actually shows, and what she shows demands that it be no more than half of that.

[sunnyskywalker]

My preferred scenario is (a) some schools are much larger, and (b) JKR is also wrong about the number of schools ;-) Let's say there are 11 old, major schools with endowments and rich and famous alumni, and then some little bitty local schools with barely enough funding. No one counts them because most of them don't last anywhere near a thousand years and most people haven't heard of them.

Possibly there are also still apprenticeship programs in place of institutional schooling, so that an 8 year old might apprentice to a Potions master, learn potioneering and maybe a bit of whatever else is useful for the job, and be licensed to use magic only for that job. That might be the fate of some of the Muggleborns in Durmstrang's catchment area, if there isn't a lower-tier school handy--get "discovered" and the rights to your training sold off to whomever is willing to take you on (wouldn't want you out there performing accidental magic and drawing attention, after all), work in a shop and marry another Muggleborn former apprentice, and if you're lucky, your grandkids will be more or less acceptable in "proper" wizarding society.

Kwikspell-type courses might more or less work for some people (just not Squibs). Sort of like the magical equivalent of studying to take the GED maybe?