Two years after this talk, Mao Zedong endorsed the Red Guard movement -- that arose to revolutionize education and society itself.
Since we are talking about early attempts at Maoist education in Nepal, it may be worth visiting what Mao Zedong himself wrote about schools and education.
All his life Mao urged rebellion against official authority and the questioning of traditional teachings. Not surprisingly, that led him to have a very radical critique of the educational system inherited from feudal, imperial China — with its worship of obediance, subservience, memorization of classic texts, divorce of theory and practice, and measuring merit by tests.
The following are excerpts from Mao’s remarks at the spring festival (February 13, 1964), given two years before the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) and before the creation of the Red Guard movement of youth to revolutionize schools and society.
Along with the real and restless radicalism of his approach, what stands out how organically rooted Mao’s analysis is in Chinese conditions — in the actual conditions of education at that time, and in the historical development of intellectual training within that society. It also stands out how difficult the struggle for transformation was — Mao expressed strong and unmistakable views here, and very specific proposals for transformation, but it would take the great storms of the GPCR to even start to revolutionize Chinese education in these new ways.
This is the talk where Mao made his quip that “It’s no fun being a running dog. ” He makes an interesting passing reference to Cuba (which had only recently completed its revolution): “Revisionism is being rebuffed everywhere…. In Cuba they listen to half and reject half; they listen to half because they can’t do otherwise, since they don’t produce oil or weapons.”
But, below we are only excerpting those sections and exchanges that deal specifically with education.
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Mao Zedong: Today I want to talk to you about the problem of education. Progress has been made in industry, and I think that there should be same changes in education too. The present state of affairs won’t do. In my opinion the line and orientation [fanchen] in education are correct, but the methods are wrong, and must be changed. Present here today are comrades from the Central Committee, comrades from within the Party, comrades from outside the Party, comrades from the Academy of Sciences.
The period of schooling should be shortened somewhat…
At present, there is too much studying going on, and this is exceedingly harmful. There are too many subjects at present, and the burden is too heavy, it puts middle school and university students in a constant state of tension. Cases of short sight are constantly multiplying among primacy and middle-school students. This can’t be allowed to go on unchanged.
The syllabus should be chopped in half. The students should have time for recreation, swimming, playing ball, and reading freely outside their course work. Confucius only professed the six arts — rites, music, archery, chariot-driving, poetry and history — but he produced four sages: Yen Hui, Tseng-tzu, Tzu Lu and Mencius. It won’t do for students just to read books all day, and not to go in for cultural pursuits, physical education, and swimming, not to be able to run around, or to read things outside their courses, etc….
Throughout history, very few of those who came first in the imperial examination have achieved great fame. The celebrated T’ang dynasty poets Li Po and Tu Fu were neither chin-shih nor han-lin. [21] Han Yü and Liu Tsungyilan [22] were only chin-shih of the second rank. Wang Shih-fu, Kuan Han-ch’ing, [23] Lo Kuan-chung, [24] P’u Sung-ling, Ts’ao Hsueh-ch’in were none of them chin-shih or han-lin. P’u Sung-ling was a hsiu-ts’ai who had received promotion, he wanted to rise to the next higher rank, but he was not a chü-jen. [25] None of those who became chin-shih or han-lin wore successful. Only two of the emperors of the Ming dynasty did well, T’ai-tsu and Ch’eng-tsu. One was illiterate, and the other only knew a few characters. Afterwards, in contrast, in the Chia-ch’ing reign, when the intellectuals had power, things were in a bad state, the country was in disorder.[26] Han Wu Ti and Li Hou-chu [27] were highly cultivated, and ruined the country. It is evident that to read too many books is harmful. Liu Hsui was an academician, whereas Liu Pang was a country bumpkin. [28]…
Our present method of conducting examinations is a method for dealing with the enemy, not a method for dealing with the people. It is a method of surprise attack, asking oblique or strange questions. This is still the same method as the old eight-legged essay. I do not approve of this. It should be changed completely.
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