In a way Socrates was exactly right. Consider Buddhism, a philosophy that lasted orally for hundreds of years before the first texts were written. Even today, buddhist monks use chanting and repetition to memorize these teachings, internalize them, and live them.

Sure, you could read these teachings and move on with your life, but can you recite what you just read, or even what you just wrote? Not a chance. Your memory of text is fleeting compared to if you gave focused mental effort committing that text to memory through oral repetition.