But while Bok concludes that the benefits of America's system of higher learning far outweigh its costs, "success is no cause for complacency."

BOK HAS SEEN the future of American higher education, and it is something called "competency-based learning." In the bad old days, switch-wielding professors demanded rote memorization of facts and the ideas of others. But to meet the challenges of a new era, Bok writes, a "critical mind, free of dogma, may be the most important product of education."

Competency-based learning would presumably come close to producing such minds. Now being tried out only at some small, experimental schools, it stresses the development of communication, analytic and problem-solving skills, as well as the abilities to appreciate the arts, to make value judgments and to interact socially.

Bok is not optimistic, though, that professors at major research universities would ever go along with such a plan. Overly protective of their departmental fiefdoms and academic specialties, they are not likely, he says, to find the time or willingness to define such a set of shared objectives and then orient their teaching towards its goals.

The best that can be hoped for is some compromise that--tada!--sounds a lot like our very own Core Curriculum. This highlights the fundamental problem with Bok's thoughtful, well-conceived book. It's almost too well conceived. His purpose in writing it at times seems to be to defend, in the guise of a formal study, his tenure as president of Harvard. Budding bureaucrats need some help dealing with social problems? Well, our Kennedy School is a great place. Professional school students need some ethical training? We're doing it here, folks.

Bok obviously is not a neutral observer on the subject of higher learning. Too often, though, his biases muddle his attempt at a sober piece of work. One could easily come away from the book thinking that all the good being done in America's universites is the work of administrators who need to overcome the retarding influence of a distracted, if not apathetic faculty.

Still, Higher Learning is valuable for its survey of the state of American higher education. It also makes fascinating reading for those Bokologists who have the time to read the book and want to gain some insight into the mind of Harvard's once and future president.