John Howard On History

IT IS easy to dismiss the Prime Minister's criticism of history teaching as a populist rant. John Howard's attack was ludicrously short on detail. What history curriculums did Mr Howard mean, and for what years, in what states? He did not say. Yet that does not mean the speech can be simply dismissed. There will be more than a little sympathy with Mr Howard's view that Australians know too little of their past - and that inevitably compromises their future.