Books were expensive,
many sheep had to lay down their lives to generate the parchment of a book.
So, generally speaking, students didn't have books.
They came to class, and
the teacher read out of the book, and the students repeated.
They even continued this as they marched around the school yard.
The teacher read from a book, the students repeated.
If, after years of study, the student had memorized the content of the book.
He was given the book as a present as he left school.
So, the book wasn't so much an opportunity to engage education or
an invitation to learn, but rather a symbol of accomplishment.
So, things were very different back in the day, back in the Middle Ages.
And they aren't different today,
nowadays we sometimes read our books on our cellphones.