Administrative decrees like this are based on a false premise. Education is not about knowing things. It's about discovering and implementing what you can do with what you know.
He quotes Einstein for support:
Such coercion [cramming for examinations] smothers every truly scientific impulse. ... It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.
