Let the Children Develop Fully Their Intelligence and Wisdom

The basic task of educational work is to train qualified personnel; to investigate the success or failure, gain or loss, of educational work, we must, in the final analysis, evaluate whether it has trained excellent qualified personnel for every front. We say that the pre-Cultural Revolution educational work line was correct, that the accomplishments of those seventeen years cannot be denied, that the "two estimates" must be criticized. The strongest basis for argument is that in that period not only were the vast numbers of qualified personnel trained and despatched by the educational front not matched by that of any other period in our nation's history, but also that many of them were truly outstanding. By now they have become the mainstay on every front, and they are the main strength on which the realization of the four modernizations relies. It is precisely because of this that now, when we are carrying out the policy of adjustment, reform, correction, and improvement, we naturally must first consider how to reinstate the good experience and good tradition of education in the past, which have been proven correct and effective through practice and investigation.