Japanese education

Story from sister Sally, dating back perhaps a decade;
She was being shown around the university, and at one stage asked "And where is the library?" Some puzzlement.
"The books?" Ah, yes, of course, the books were in the professor's office.
"Didn't that make it difficult for the students to take them out?"
Why would they wish to take them out? The professor has provided in his textbook all that they need to know about these other books.
The top history student had bought not one but two copies of the course textbook (written, of course, by his professor) and had gone through one copy whiting out every date and every proper name. He them went away and crammed. When he was able to fill every name and date in again correctly without consulting the clean version he knew he was ready for the examination.