traditional Chinese characters. Also released in 1964 was a directive for further simplification in order to improve literacy, with the goal of eventually reducing the number of strokes in commonly used characters to ten or fewer. This was to take place gradually, with consideration for both "ease of production [writing] and ease of recognition [reading]." In 1975, a second round of simplifications, the Second Scheme, was submitted by the Script Reform Committee of China to the State Council for approval. Like the First Scheme, it contained two lists, where the first table (comprising 248 characters) was for immediate use, and the second table (comprising 605 characters) for evaluation and discussion. Of these, 21 from the first list and 40 from the second also served as components of other characters, which caused the Second Scheme to modify some 4,500 characters. On 20 December 1977, major newspapers such as the People's Daily and the Guangming Daily published the second-round simplifications along with editorials and articles strongly endorsing the changes. Both newspapers began to use the characters from the first list on the following day. The Second Scheme was received extremely poorly, and as early as mid-1978, the Ministry of Education and the Central Propaganda Department were asking publishers of textbooks, newspapers and other works to stop using the second-round simplifications. Second-round simplifications were taught inconsistently in the education system, and people used characters at various stages of official or unofficial simplification. Confusion and disagreement ensued. The Second Scheme was officially retracted by the State Council on 24 June 1986. The State Council's retraction also emphasized that Chinese character reform should henceforth proceed with caution, and that the forms of Chinese characters should be kept stable. Later that year, a final version of the 1964 list was published with minor changes, and no further changes have been made since. Methods of simplification The second round of simplification continued to use the methods used in the first round. For example: In some characters, the phonetic component of the character was replaced with a simpler one, while the radical was unchanged. For example: → (⿱艹才) → 𦬁 (⿱艹才) 酒 → 氿 稳 → 𮂹 (⿰禾文) 儒 → 𰁡 (⿰亻入) 灌 → 浂 冀 → 丠 廖 → 𭙏 (⿸广了) 僚 → 𠆨 (⿰亻了) In some characters, entire components were replaced by ones that are similar in shape: 幕 → 𫯜 (⿱大巾) 整 → 𰋞 (⿱大正)