Sir, – Regarding John Waters’s attempt to defend religious control and indoctrination in Irish schools (Opinion, July 1st), first, the “child citizens” in the real republic where I reside do not emerge from their secular schools with their “hope deflated, desire stunted, a citizen of a dictatorship”. On the contrary, they tend to emerge with curious, eager and well trained minds, ready to play an active civic role. Second, it remains absolutely open to parents in France, as it would in Ireland, to inculcate in their children whatever sense they wish of the “mysteriousness of reality”. Why it is felt by some that this task should be delegated to state-trained and paid-for educators is perhaps the real mystery. – Yours, etc,