You can see the same thing going on today. The workplace is becoming increasingly computerised, employers are complaining that their workforce isn't familiar enough with computers, and so the government is putting money into buying computers for schools and increasing the number of third-level computing courses. We learn pieces of information off by heart, so we can pass exams, so we can get a job where we will be given whatever other information we need to do our job. Our schools are just glorified production lines - children go in one end, workers come out the other. There is little room for the idea that knowledge might be a good thing in itself, that there is more to education than making round pegs for round holes.
Every parent knows that young children are curious - sometimes maddeningly so.
The classical view of education, and the one that informs anarchist ideas on education, is that this curiosity should be encouraged, and that teaching is primarily a matter of facilitation. Instead of telling children why the sky is blue, point them at an encyclopedia. You learn things much better when you find them out for yourself than when you're just told to memorise them, with no explanation given. Some people applied this principle differently. For example, Francisco Ferrer, the Spanish anarchist and founder of the Modern School movement, thought that children should be taught some basic reasoning tools and the scientific method, and would then figure things out for themselves.