Our teaching plans and textbooks are uniform nationwide.
Is there a problem with this approach? Can the provinces add some teaching materials? Do the provinces feel restricted? Are there still private secondary schools in the provinces? Private schools can still be run, and after they are established, the government should not take them over.
If private schools are taken over after being set up, people's enthusiasm for running private schools will not increase.
Running "capped secondary schools"[1] is still a good method.
Setting up secondary schools in rural areas is an advanced experience; farmers' children can attend school nearby and return home to work after graduation.
If the teachers are relatively poor, we can transfer some from good secondary schools to support them—taking from the fat to supplement the lean, taking from the many to supplement the few.
If the quality of education is poor, didn't Confucius[2] also not receive such an education?
This is to solve the problem of farmers' children attending secondary school nearby—even opera performances have makeshift troupes[3].
In rural areas, education should emphasize universal access, not improvement, and not overstress quality.
The curriculum can also be simpler, with eight or nine subjects such as Chinese, mathematics, history, geography, physics, chemistry, agricultural production knowledge, and politics being sufficient; other subjects can be studied independently later.
These schools primarily address the knowledge farmers need in production labor; if students wish to advance to higher education, there is no restriction—those with good grades can advance, while some may not necessarily do so.
The famous Soviet writer Gorky never attended secondary school and still became self-taught! Xiao Chunu[4] also never attended any formal school, yet he ran newspapers fairly well.
The "cap" of capped secondary schools should not be removed; where conditions permit, more should be added, and schools should be dispersed in rural areas—removing the cap is not good.
What is the current amount of student subsidies? The subsidies should be adjusted.
It will take another three to five years to properly run rural cooperatives. Currently, in most regions, the cooperatives have only been in existence for one year, and last year's sideline production was very limited, so farmers' incomes did not increase much, life remains hard, and children's enrollment struggles to solve the food issue.
Based on the current economic situation, we plan to expand student subsidies over the next two to three years so that 70 to 80 percent of rural households' children can benefit, helping farmers overcome some difficulties.
After three years, as the difficulties of agricultural cooperatives lessen or disappear, subsidies can be gradually reduced.
At present, subsidies should be distributed based on students' financial difficulties and should not serve as scholarships.
To ease the tension over the advancement of senior primary school graduates, secondary school enrollment can be increased somewhat.
Primary schools should also increase their student intake simultaneously.
Regarding community-run and privately run schools, they can be established where conditions permit, but no mandatory orders should be issued.
The current difficulties are mainly due to last year's severe natural disaster, so this year's income cannot increase significantly.
Last year, we depleted surplus funds, dug into reserves, and exhausted material stocks—steel, timber, and bamboo resources were used up.
Light industrial production, primarily cotton yarn and cloth, cannot compare this year to last year, and tax revenues are also not as high as last year.
We should clearly explain this to students so they understand the overall economic situation of the country.
The state only has this much money and these resources, so it can only establish this many schools.
Schools must vigorously carry out ideological education, emphasizing discipline and hard work in building up enterprises.
Students must be able to endure hardship and build from scratch.
Are we not all people who have experienced difficulties? Socialism is an arduous undertaking.
In the future, we should promote the spirit of hard struggle among workers, peasants, soldiers, and students.
In schools, we should foster an atmosphere where teachers and students share joys and hardships, jointly running the school well.
We should place importance on cultivating students' creative spirit, not letting them become like flowers in a greenhouse.
From now on, no matter who goes to recruit students, they should not talk wildly, not paint everything as bright and beautiful, but rather speak of difficulties, throw some cold water on students, so they are mentally prepared.
The trend of students engaging in romantic relationships should be reversed.
The marriage law's provisions on the legal age for marriage need not be amended, but young people should be advised to marry later.
The Ministry of Education should compile some texts specifically discussing hard struggle, to be taught from primary school through university.
We must strengthen political and ideological education in schools; each province should have a head of the propaganda department and a director of education personally overseeing this work.
Secondary schools should have political classes.
Political classes should connect with reality, be lively and interesting, not dogmatic, and enable secondary school students to understand some principles of how to conduct oneself in life.
If teaching the history of social development from monkeys to humans overlaps with history classes, the history class can start from the founding of the People's Republic of China, covering victories and difficulties; but the topic from monkeys to humans should still be taught, and class struggle must also be addressed.
Textbooks should be revised every two to three years to keep them from becoming detached from reality.
Dong Chuncai[5] could reduce some administrative work and spend more time compiling textbooks; Zhang Jichun and Hu Qiaomu[6] could also be invited to assist in jointly compiling good textbooks.
Party committees should guide the thinking of youth and the thinking of teachers.
Why can't a county party secretary meet with secondary and primary school principals once or twice a year, or hold one or two meetings? Recently, the Central Committee will issue a directive to address this matter.
This is something the first secretaries at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels should attend to; if the secretaries don't manage it, the heads of propaganda departments will find it very hard to manage.
Managing it for three or four days in the first half of the year and three or four days in the second half—managing it for seven or eight days a year is sufficient.
We must task provincial, prefectural, and county party secretaries with managing ideological work, newspapers, schools, literature and art, and broadcasting.
When it comes to Soviet teaching materials, we should adopt what needs to be adopted and not adopt what should not be adopted.
You must undertake reform; do not copy foreign models verbatim—they must align with China's conditions and also have local characteristics.
Agricultural textbooks should be compiled by the provinces; geography can include local geography; literature should include local literature; history can have each province's own historical materials.
The curriculum should be reduced, the workload lightened, and the number of subjects decreased—all for the sake of all-rounded development.
Those lines like "Guan guan ju jiu"[7] have no poetic flavor at all, and no one understands *Chu Ci* or *Li Sao*.
For Chinese language classes, we can select works from *Water Margin*, *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, and the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties[8].
Currently, there is too little composition practice; at least once a week, and if there are difficulties, a bit less is also acceptable.

Printed based on the recorded speech transcript preserved in the Central Archives.

Notes
[1] "Capped secondary schools" refer to primary schools that have added junior secondary classes.
[2] Confucius, see note [12] on page 84 of this volume.
[3] "Makeshift troupes" refer to theatrical troupes with few actors and simple equipment that often perform in rural areas or small towns on a touring basis.
[4] Xiao Chunu (1893–1927), from Hanyang, Hubei. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1922 and once served as the chief editor of *New Sichuan News* and the editor-in-chief of *Chinese Youth*.
[5] Dong Chuncai (1905–1990), from Daye, Hubei, was an educator. At the time, he served as Deputy Minister of Education.
[6] Zhang Jichun (1900–1968), from Yizhang, Hunan, then served as Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee. Hu Qiaomu (1912–1992), from Yancheng, Jiangsu, then served as an alternate member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong's secretary.
[7] From "Guan Ju" in the "Zhou Nan" section of the *Book of Songs*. The full poem reads: "Guan guan call the ospreys, on the islet in the river. The lovely and virtuous maiden, is the gentleman's fine spouse. Uneven lengths of water-plants, left and right we pluck them. The lovely and virtuous maiden, waking and sleeping we seek her. We seek but cannot find her, waking and sleeping we long for her. Long thoughts, long thoughts, we toss and turn restlessly. Uneven lengths of water-plants, left and right we gather them. The lovely and virtuous maiden, we greet her with zithers and lutes. Uneven lengths of water-plants, left and right we strip them. The lovely and virtuous maiden, we please her with bells and drums."
[8] The Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song dynasties refer to the Tang dynasty writers Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, and the Song dynasty writers Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Zeng Gong, and Wang Anshi.