Abstract :
Pointing out the necessity for priorities in brain power as well as in war materials, Brigadier General William O. Hotchkiss, deputy director, Army Specialist Corps, spoke at the annual meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education on June 27, 1942, at New York, N. Y., on the formation and function of the Army Specialist Corps. The text of his address follows: Recently I heard an experienced Army officer state emphatically that our most valuable asset is man power. I agreed with him heartily and added that that part of our man power with highly trained brain power was the most precious of all. We have read frequently of “bottlenecks” in the supply of steel plates for ships, or of engines for airplanes, or of tanks and guns. We have rarely seen in print the real bottleneck, which was that there were not enough men with the proper quantity and quality of brain power working on the problem in time. Every instance of “too little and too late” in ships, in supplies, and in munitions can be stated in terms of too little and too late application of trained brains to the problem.
