Mao Zedong’s Comment on a Letter Raising Problems[1]
(12 January 1965)

Comrades He Long and Rui Qing[2]:
What this document says may be a common failing in many academies and schools. Please handle it seriously. Since Comrade Lin Biao proposed rectifying the academies and schools last year, there may have been some progress, and thus the author of this letter has also dared to speak out.

Mao Zedong
12 January

1. The academy’s educational management methods foster arrogance and squeamishness among the students, and also cultivate in them the habit of not using their brains in their studies.
2. Teaching materials are outdated, and the teaching content is divorced from reality. Teaching is satisfied with vigorous and dynamic forms, without paying attention to the improvement of content. The teaching departments are disconnected from the production departments, and they blockade each other.
3. Scientific research cannot be initiated. Teachers lack practical knowledge, and the time of personnel engaged in scientific research and laboratory construction is not guaranteed.
4. The administrative organs are bloated, overstaffed, with very few students, making it highly uneconomical.

--- Notes

[1] Refers to a letter to Mao Zedong from Xu Xiaozi, director of the Teaching and Research Office of the PLA Artillery Engineering Academy, on the issue of China’s military engineering and technical education. The letter states that the biggest problem currently existing in China’s military engineering and technical education, just as the Chairman criticized the Military Engineering Academy, is that the “Four Firsts” have not been implemented. The main manifestations are:

[2] This comment was written on a summary of a letter from the masses titled “The Current Problems in China’s Military Engineering and Technical Education Are Very Serious,” published in the first issue of *Reflections of the Masses*, compiled and printed by the Secretariat Office of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee on 8 January 1965.