Current mood:	thoughtful
Entry tags:	horcruxes: projects: primary school, horcruxes: wards: lucia, horcruxes: wards: mina, horcruxes: wards: private, horcruxes: wards: public, horcruxes: women: mina, horcruxes: writing: research, horcruxes: writing: wizarding education

022; 18 November 1979.
[Warded Private]

The idea has occurred to me before. And I confess that when I spoke with Mina about it, it was mostly as a undecided idea with little outside to recommend it, but I wonder now if the next title ought to be on the history of education within Britain.

Hogwarts: A History is too specific, my own People and Places behind Wizarding Britain's Golden Years is too broad as it is covering St Mungo's as well as Hogwarts and does not specifically focus on that education which has been done outside of institutionalized learning.

With the 'interest', and I believe it can best be described with such designations as unnecessary quotations, on the radio surrounding First Impressions, I find myself curious as to why something has not been put into place before. How many of our young children have found themselves within Muggle primary schools and what has been the impact upon their psychological and magical development? I cannot imagine that it could be positive, although the researcher in me must recognize that it is a possibility, however unlikely a possibility.

Of course it would also cover Hogwarts, as well as post-Hogwarts methods of education including more practical based apprenticeships and research grants among the more intellectually inclined. But I find myself most curious about the children. Tutors, parents, and Muggle primary schools - these, unless I am very much mistaken, have been the options that our previous generations of Witches and Wizards have had available to them.

It is no wonder our society is so fractured and splintered ideologically. But is there a demonstrated danger - outside of the cultural danger that feels almost inherent to me - to the magical stability or the psychological stability of our youth?

It is a potentially huge undertaking for even Hogwarts: A History focuses more upon the institution than the education within the institution, and although I have a beginning bibliography on the subject, there is far more to be done - not to mention that if it were truly to be tabulated properly, it would require personal interviews, surveying, and a gathering of data from a current population on a statistically significant scale and I am uncertain that anything along those lines has ever been attempted.

[Warded to Mina]

May I turn your prettily decorated ear on a topic of less romantic value and of a more intellectual nature?

[Warded to Lucia]

How are you feeling ma cherie? Is there anything that you need?

I will be away again this coming Saturday night. I have managed to procure an interview with an individual who had provided an Oral History to the Museum of Quidditch. I will likely be a bit later on Sunday as I will spend as much time with them as I can. As I will need to portkey to Paris for this, if there is anything you would like for me to bring back for you or for our daughters, please let me know as soon as possible.

It seems as if Christmas is the current fad to discuss in the journals and I confess that I am curious. What Christmas traditions do you celebrate with your family? What small thing do you look forward to every year around Christmastide?