In the Daily Mail of the 11th August there were two items which ought to be read carefully in conjunction with each other.

A two page spread on pages 42 and 43 was headed "Hitler's children," and one spoke of the eight million youngsters in Nazi Germany who were "brain-washed to believe they were members of the Nazi master race."

From which the reader will no doubt be expected to draw the lesson that the indoctrination of small kids is wrong.

Well, er, sort of. Of course it all depends on who is doing the indoctrinating and to what purpose. When Hitler and the Nazis did it, it must have been bad. That goes without saying!

Here is where we come to the other item in the Daily Mail of August 11th. This was to be found on pages 28 and 29. Under a heading saying "Anti-racist lessons", it went on to state, in reference to schools in modern Britain that: "Pupils are to be given a crash course in race relations in the wake of the controversial Macpherson Report," and that:-

"In a wide-ranging initiative, teachers will be expected to promote anti-racist doctrines in every curriculum subject from mathematics and English to art and P.E." Anti-racist mathematics? Anti-racist physical education?

Yes, that's what the report said. It was explained that, were mathematics was concerned, "the wording of problems should be accessible ethnic groups, for example by using different names for different cultures."

So what does this mean? We can only guess! Perhaps it means that instead of calling an equilateral triangle by the name we should use the Urdu term Or that rather than refer to square roots of numbers we should employ the Swahili translation... if there is such a thing! And anti-racist P.E.? Well, according to the report in the Mail, this means that for PE lessons pupils should wear clothing "appropriate to the religious beliefs."

Like Rastas doing somersaults doing woolly hats?

Oh, and that's not all! Pupils who are fasting, such as at Ramadan, should be excused from PE entirely!

History, of course, offers all sorts of fascinating possibilities in the way of "anti-racism." According to the report, it means that: "Teachers should make full use of the scope within the curriculum to hold lessons in different cultures and religions."

Presumably, that means that there must be, in addition to British history, be West Indian history, African history, Muslem history - and that's just for starters, what about all the others? Greek Cypriot history, Turkish history, Xosa history, Mashona history, Nepalese history, Vietnamese history, Kurdish history, Kosovar history - the list is endless. There are school pupils belonging to all these groups. They must not be left out!

Something tells us that with all this going on there's not going to be much time for our youngsters to learn about the Saxons, Magna Carta, Captain Cook, Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar!

Then art: "Pupils should study the work of Aboriginal, African, Islamic and native American artists."

All just as good as Leonardo, Rembrandt and Turner, no doubt, just different! And, by the way, how many Aboriginals (presumably Australian) and "Native Americans" are there among Britain's school children?

The item on Hitler's Germany in the same issue of the Mail was intended to be a supplement to be a series concurrently being shown on the TV Discovery Channel. It spoke, as stated earlier, of the systematic "indoctrination" of German's youngsters during the Nazi period, with "hikes and rallies, camping expeditions with patriotic singsongs around the camp-fire." And it quoted one woman as saying of her youth: "We sometimes had tears in our eyes simply because we were part of the wonderful German nation".

Love of country - that's xenophobia! How unfortunate were German youth not to enjoy the blessings of "rap"!

Elsewhere the report said that German youth leaders "were even instructed to dance in a manly German fashion." How awful - young men taught to behave like men!