Li Lanqing: In speaking of actively advancing character education, I must direct some words to parents. It is only understandable that they long to see their sons and daughters with promising futures, as most students today are from single-child families. However, this eagerness can backfire if parents fail to educate their children with scientific approaches and concepts. Cases of failure in this regard are numerous, and some have ended in tragedy. A recent survey indicates that due to lack of guidance from sound educational theory, many parents in this country are at a loss over what to do with their children education. Many put high test scores first in family education, and know little about the need to build all-round character in their children. Some force their children to pass piano examinations or to learn to play several musical instruments, thinking that this is what character education is all about. Chatacter education certainly entails arts education, but is designed mainly to inspire children love and understanding of the arts.

　　When our children school life is weighed down with bulging schoolbags and psychological pressure, how can they grow in vibrant ways and take initiative? They can be emancipated only when schools and society alike begin doing something about these pressures on them. Parents should change their ways of thinking. Educating children is a science as well as an art, and is doomed if the natural laws governing children healthy physical and mental development are violated. That is why parents should know something about education and psychology, as well as the features, standards and trends of modern education. In this regard they need the help of educators. We hope parents will become champions of character education and do their best to work with schools to promote their children all-round development.

　　Public opinion plays a major role in the process of advancing character education. It provides an appropriate guide for students, parents and the public to reach a consensus on the concepts of education, and helps foster a good environment for securing public concern and support for and involvement in character education. We hope our journalists will go to schools to discover and report on positive examples and experience in character education. And we hope our writers, artists and education researchers will do their part for carrying forward character education from their respective fields of work, all for the same purpose: to bring forth worthy successors to our cause. To this end the entire society is duty-bound.

　　The efforts to carry out character education call for comprehensive changes in orientation, functions, institution, content and approaches. They call for sweeping changes in our understanding of values, talent and quality of education. They call for social reforms in areas such as work and personnel systems, as well as the content and methods of school entrance exams. They call for fundamental changes in education in China, in order to effect transformations in economic work and sustained social education and to carry out the strategy of rejuvenating the nation through science and education. It is a restructuring project that is of vital importance and has a far-reaching influence on the overall situation, involving people from all walks of life. The conditions and the environment today are much better for full-fledged character education, but this does not mean that all the problems have been solved.

　　The contradictions between education resources and the demand for education can be redressed only through long years of hard work, while subjective issues remain a major factor. Even if we were to achieve all the objective conditions, we would still get nowhere without resolving certain subjective issues. We hope that schools, families and the public will communicate and cooperate with one another, be courageous in breaking new ground, and work together to bring about a new situation in character education under rational government guidance.