SIR.—HOW far is one who is in charge of the
young justified in imposing his own opinions on them? Any parent of young children knows how unquestioning and pathetically implicit is their faith in his every word, and for many, surely, it must be alarming at times to realise how completely malleable are the unformed minds committed to their charge.
What has perturbed me since Mr. Evelyn Waugh referred to 'my Roman Catholic chil- dren' is the persistent thought that had he not chosen conversion to Roman Catholicism for himself, but had preferred, say, Shintoism or Seventh-Day Adventism, he would now be referring to 'my Shintoist children' or 'my Seventh-Day Adventist cdren,' for his various writings in the Specittor have made it fairly clear that he would be unlikely to tolerate in his home any opinions other than his own. Does every believer in his own minority religion (and all religions are minority religions, with the outside majority regarded as unbelievers or infidels) never feel a qualm when engaged in the forcible indoctrination of the very young?—Yours faithfully,
H. S. WILLIAMSON 5 Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, W4
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