Textbooks can't be the only guide for pupils

The People's Education Press has announced that it will remove the "fake text" about Thomas Edison (1847-1931) from textbooks since the next semester from September.

According to that text, Edison, as a child, used mirrors to direct light to the operation table during his mother's appendicitis surgery. Though the story highlights the earlier creativity of Edison, the first appendicitis surgery was performed in 1886, when Edison was 39 years old.

Some people said some Chinese textbooks have similar factual errors. For instance, one text describes a father rushing to a school to save students after the 1994 earthquake rocked California. Yet a simple fact check shows the 1994 earthquake occurred at 4:30 am when most of the students were in bed. All such texts sound like the story of George Washington cutting the cherry tree, teaching good moral lessons with fake stories, which eventually lead to credibility problems. And after suspecting readers debunk such stories, editors should either correct the mistakes or remove the contents from textbooks.