DEPRESSION AND ECONOMICS

Among the statistics of Freshmen concentrating in the various field, the most marked change is the decline in the number of students specializing in Economics. Any accurate analysis of these figures is complicated by such other variables as the decrease in membership of the Freshman class, but for the loss of numbers in Economics there are some apparent reasons. Many students in past years have been led toward Economics by their own idea that it would give them vocational training for business, despite the assertions of members of the department to the contrary, and despite the advice of instructors that they would do better to go to a school of commerce or business administration.

During the prosperous years of 1928 and 1929 the field of Economics was flooded with men who thought they would get this sort of practical training. The decrease in its membership which is coincident with the depression, may logically be considered a result of a clearer view of what the field really has to offer. Fewer men are going into the department under the misapprehension that they will learn practical business methods.

Men who do go into the field must see that the study is not futile merely because it has not given a panacea for business ills; for the depression by making problems more complex and more acute is actually giving the field a greater appeal. They must see that economists are not primarily moneymakers and do not propose to find cure-alls, but rather hope to examine the economic structure and to analyze factors, controlling those which can be controlled and weighing those which cannot. The decrease of membership of the Economics department, by indicating the closer restriction of the field to these men who do understand its aims, shows the more effective direction of its efforts.