1. Book 1 of the 1978 set is prepared by the Primary and Secondary School Universal Teaching Materials Primary School Language Editorial Group (Zhongxiaoxue tongyong jiaocai xiaoxue yuwen bian-xie zu) and published by the People's Education Press (Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe). It is labelled a Primary School Textbook for the Full-time Day, 10-year System of Schools, and, under the publishing details, an experimental volume. The other volumes, published in March 1978 by the Jilin Renmin Chubanshe, were prepared by the Jilin Provincial Secondary and Primary School Teaching Materials Editorial Group. While the first volume was clearly produced for use in the 1978–79 school year in schools throughout China the other books were intended only for use within Jilin. Since presumably other national textbooks in the series were produced by the autumn (this volume was ready in February) it is uncertain whether Volumes 3–9 were actually used in the schools, or whether they were scrapped in favour of the national volumes.

The first two volumes of the 1964 set were produced for Jinan, Shandong, in 1963 and 1964, respectively (though both were actually printed in 1964), by the People's Education Press Primary School Language Editorial Office (Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe xiaoxue yuwen bianji shf). Volumes 5 and 7 were first produced in 1961 and subsequently reissued in 1963 and 1964, respectively, by the Peking Press (Beijing Chubanshe). They were produced by the Secondary and Primary School Teaching Materials Editing and Review Division of the Peking Municipality Education Bureau (Beijingshi jiaoyuju zhong-xiaoxue jiaocai bianshenchu). The last volume, referred to throughout as Volume 9, is Volume 1 of the then upper primary school, produced like the first two volumes, in Jinan. By good fortune the 1978 series, which I obtained thanks to the kindness of John Cleverley, were by coincidence for the same grades as those used in her comparison with Taiwan books by Martin, Roberta: “The socialization of children in China and on Taiwan: an analysis of elementary school textbooks,” CQ, No. 62 (1975), pp. 242–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Readers who study her article, and also the book by Ridley, C. P., Godwin, P. H. B and Doolin, D. J., The making of a model citizen in communist China (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971)Google Scholar, will notice both the similarities and differences in content between the different editions of textbooks used in the 1960s.

2. p. 243.

3. pp. 3 and 5.

4. China Features, Peking, article by Kai Ching, “China goes all out to raise quality of education “; Price, R. F. (ed.), Education after Mao (Melbourne: Centre for Comparative and International Studies in Education), pp. 64–5Google Scholar; information given by Ministry of Education official to visiting Australian education groups, August 1978.

5. Price, R. F., Education in communist China (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970–1975), p. 117Google Scholar.

6. Price, 1975, pp. 278–9; the only books of that period I have seen are a Politics textbook and a General Knowledge textbook produced in Jilin in 1975. The former has three volumes to be spread over the five years of schooling, the latter, on agriculture, only over grades 4 and 5.

7. The majority would seem to be relatively poorly endowed.

8. Two alternatives known to be widely read should be noted. One is the series of science books entitled 100,000 whys. First produced in 1962, this was again reprinted in 1970 and subsequent years and is very popular, at least in the cities. Extracts from this and other items appear in Chinese Education, Spring 1978, Vol. XI, No. 1 (guest editor: Swetz, Frank J.)Google Scholar. The other alternative is the serial picture books, the lianhuanhua, for a summary of whose contents see Price, R. F., What Chinese children read about: serial picture books and foreigners (Melbourne: Centre for Comparative and International Studies in Education, 1976)Google Scholar, and Wilkinson, E. and Nebiolo, G., The people's comic book (New York, Anchor Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

9. For a fuller description and illustrations from the 1960s series see Price, 1975, pp. 117–23 and Ridley et al. pp. 12–23 and 69–86. Illustrations from the 1978 first volume appear in Price, 1978, pp. 66–7.

10. Bk. 1, pp. 62–3.

11. 28 on eight pages compared with only 12 on five in 1978.

12. This does not normally apply to where it is written over the characters of a text, though in Book 3, 1964, there is a text in which both characters and pinyin are grouped into words, e.g. diren jianle hunshen fadou, p. 11.

13. Bk. 5.

14. 1978.

15. One wonders how many village schools have ready access to sufficient dictionaries, items which always seem to be in short supply even in the city shops.

16. “Backed“ as in the classical schools!

17. In Bk. 3, p. 64 and Bk. 7, p. 47.

18. Serve the people, self-reliance, discipline and will, and frugality.

18a. pp. 23 and 55.

19. pp. 44 and 48.

20. p. 13.

21. pp. 11 and 13.

22. Bk. 5, p. 48.

23. p. 25.

24. p. 33.

25. Bk. 7, p. 62.

26. Bk. 3, p. 62.

27. Ridley, et al. pp. 187–9.

28. Ridley, et al. pp. 190–1.

29. Marx, , German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965), p. 272Google Scholar.

30. In the early part of the Cultural Revolution, cf. Starr, J. B., “Revolution in retrospect: the Paris Commune through Chinese eyes,” CQ, No. 49 (1972), pp. 106–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A collection of writings by Marx, , Engels, , Lenin, and Stalin, on the Paris Commune, Lun Bali gongshe, was published by the Remin Chubanshe in Peking in 1961 and 1971Google Scholar.

31. February 1975.

32. Martin, pp. 242–62.

33. p. 258.

34. p. 258.

35. p. 259.

36. Bk. 7, 1964, p. 110.

37. Bk. 7, 1978, p. 67.

38. Bk. 5, 1978, p. 25.

39. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 22.

40. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 50.

41. Shehuiihuyi wenhua ke in Bk. 9, 1978, p. 77.

42. Bk. 9, 1978, p. 64.

43. Bk. 5, 1964, p. 31.

44. Bk. 9, 1978, p. 53.

45. Bk. 7, 1978, p. 23.

46. Bk. 9, 1978, p. 65.

47. Bk. 7, 1978, p. 45.

48. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 50.

49. p. 89.

50. p. 92.

51. Bk. 7, 1978, p. 3.

52. Bk. 5, 1964, p. 84.

53. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 12 and 1964, p. 31.

54. Bk. 7, 1978, p. 6 and 1964, p. 4.

55. Feichang zunshou zhidu; Bk. 5, 1964, p. 1 and 1978, p. 1.

56. p. 55.

57. p. 7.

58. Bk. 1, p. 17 and Bk. 7, p. 17.

59. Bk. 5, p. 11.

60. Bk. 7, p. 20.

61. Bk. 9, p. 39 and Bk. 5, 1964, p. 87.

62. Bk. 5, 1964, p. 4.

63. p. 7.

64. p. 67.

65. Bk. 9, p. 34.

66. p. 126.

67. Martin, p. 260.

68. Bk. 1, p. 71.

69. Bk. 3, p. 19.

70. Bk. 5, p. 32.

71. Bk. 7, p. 27.,

72. Bk. 5, 1964, p. 39 and Bk. 3, 1978, p. 71.

73. Bk. 3, 1964, p. 17, cf. Martin, p. 248, where Xiao Ning is wrongly identified as a little boy.

74. Bk. 9, p. 22.

75. Bk. 5, p. 31.

76. Bk. 1, 1978, p. 62.

77. Bk. 1, 1978, p. 78.

78. Bk. 3, p. 92.

79. p. 247.

80. Roberta Martin, p. 255.

81. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 33.

82. This was noted by Martin, p. 253, and Ridley, el al. pp. 173–4.

83. Bk. 1, 1978, p. 68.

84. Bk. 3, 1978, p. 44.

85. Martin, p. 260.

86. Martin, ibid.

87. In Price, 1970–75, p. 45, I noted the parallel between Mao's stress on unselfishness and that of such Neo-Confucian writings as the Jin Si Lu.

88. Martin, p. 249, where she notes how in one text “people are encouraged to be ‘good children of Chairman Mao.’ “