Donham Says Education Must Adjust to New Economic Order

Colleges and graduate schools throughout the country will have to adjust themselves to new conditions arising from the disappearance of large private fortunes and the weakening of the nation's middle class, Dean Wallace B. Donham of the Business School said yesterday in his annual report.

In his report, which reviewed the war programs at the Business School and the special defense research now being conducted there for the army, Dean Donham said that he welcomed the emergency as an opportunity for experimenting along lines "which are already indicated by certain marked social and economic trends.

"Large fortunes, for example, are rapidly disappearing," Dean Donham said. "The middle class is far weaker than it was 12 years ago. It will not be able to support as long or as expensive education in the future as in the past 30 years."

In addition, population at the school age level has been declining for some time and will shortly be felt by the colleges, and "graduate schools and income from endowment is shrinking and the future is uncertain," Dean Donham said.

"The cumulative impact of such developments will force changes for which our colleges and universities may be ill prepared unless they take this opportunity to reappraise their curricula, their customary time schedules and indeed their educational objectives."

The present 12-month course of training for defense industries which was introduced at the Business School for the emergency only may well be continued after the war, if it proves successful, Dean Donham said.

"We do not consider the 12 months' course an equivalent for our two-year program. Nor would we be willing to sacrifice the longer program permanently to a 12 months' course for the entire school. It is my personal belief, how- ever that the two programs can be so coordinated that the longer course is actually strengthened in quality. The shorter course, if it works out as well as we expect, will meet a real social need."

As an example of the close cooperation between the Business School and military authorities, Dean Donham said that under an agreement with the National Research Council the Fatigue Laboratory has spent most of its time during the past year in studying the effects of simulated desert conditions on the capacity of soldiers and in assessing the physical fitness of a group of volunteer infantry-men from Fort Devens