But wasn't it like that in older times with certain cultures? i.e The Jewish children learning at home until they entered Hebrew school?

I also get the feeling that, for the size of the wizarding community, there aren't that many children. Between the number of Magic kids from outside, the age people reach, and the number of un-sprogged adults, I think I'm not too far off-base. That would make Nursery schools less necessary/possible.

I love the unanswered questions in that interview. I'm sure people all over the web (who aren't embroiled in the shipper wars) are obsessing over what she refused to answer.

But wasn't it like that in older times with certain cultures? i.e The Jewish children learning at home until they entered Hebrew school?

What time period and place are you referring to? I can't remember this being common anywhere in Jewish history that I've studied, but there are plenty of times and places that I don't really know much about.

But, everywhere that I can think of that did have that sort of system, it's been a pretty small subset of the population that did get any sort of education. Like, there would be some kids learning at home until they were old enough for school, but then plenty of kids whose parents didn't have any education, and so they didn't get any education.

What time period and place are you referring to?

I honestly have no idea. Most of my knowledge on older Jewish customs comes from Fiddler on the Roof.

Most of my knowledge on older Jewish customs comes from Fiddler on the Roof.

But there, the sons say, "At three I started Hebrew school."

(Sorry. I'm being totally unneccesarily pedantic, and I've just earwormed myself.)

There's a fun editorial (written before HBP came out) on what Houses the various DADA professors might have come from (other than Lupin and now Snape, none of them are specified in the books). The writer thinks it's Quirrell - Ravenclaw, Lockhart - Gryffindor, Crouch Jr. (who was the actual professor, not Moody) - Hufflepuff, and Umbridge - Slytherin. I especially like the idea of Crouch being sorted into Hufflepuff, since his overriding characteristic trait is fanatical loyalty.

Sorry. I'm being totally unneccesarily pedantic, and I've just earwormed myself.

Then you've been punished enough.

At 11 I started Wizard school....

From the Leaky Cauldron interview:

Well, Hogwarts. All right. Here is the thing with Hogwarts. Way before I finished “Philosopher's Stone,” when I was just amassing stuff for seven years, between having the idea and publishing the book, I sat down and I created 40 kids who enter Harry's year. I'm delighted I did it, [because] it was so useful. I got 40 pretty fleshed out characters. I never have to stop and invent someone. I know who’s in the year, I know who's in which house, I know what their parentage is, and I have a few personal details on all of them. So there were 40. I never consciously thought, “That's it, that' s all the people in his year,” but that's kind of how it's worked out. Then I've been asked a few times how many people and because numbers are not my strong point, one part of my brain knew 40, and another part of my brain said, “Oh, about 600 sounds right.” Then people started working it out and saying, "Where are the other kids sleeping?" [Laughter.] We have a little bit of a dilemma there. I mean, obviously magic is very rare. I wouldn't want to say a precise ratio. But if you assume that all of the wizarding children are being sent to Hogwarts, then that's very few wizard-to-Muggle population, isn’t it? There will be the odd kid whose parents don't want them to go to Hogwarts, but 600 out of the whole of Britain is tiny.

Let's say three thousand [in Britain], actually, thinking about it, and then think of all the magical creatures, some of which appear human. So then you've got things like hags, trolls, ogres and so on, so that's really bumping up your numbers. And then you've got the world of sad people like Filch and Figg who are kind of part of the world but are hangers on. That's going to bump you up a bit as well, so it's a more sizable, total magical community that needs hiding, concealing, but don't hold me to these figures, because that's not how I think.

But those numbers don't make any sense (I think that JKR was making them up as she was talking). If you have around 600 kids in school at any one time, but only have 3000 active wizards in all of Britain, that means that there are only 5 times as many wizards as there are Hogwarts students! There were more than that just at the Quidditch World Cup championship, and I'm sure that only a small fraction of the British wizards attended.