THE TRAINING SCHOOL FOR MILITARY STORES SERVICE
The Training School for Military Stores Service was established by the Tuck School at the urgent suggestion of the Storage Committee of the General Munitions Board. The function of the Storage Committee is to assist the military authorities in building up their organization for caring for reserve military supplies between the time they are delivered by manufacturers to the government and the time they are issued to forces in the field. It is an emergency problem of building up with great rapidity a military-industrial organization of expert stores managers, numbering many thousands of men, without drawing upon members of the existing military forces who are trained for and necessary for strict military services.
The immediate problem of the military authorities and the Storage Committee is to incorporate into the existing stores organization a large body of men of such intelligence, training and adaptability that they may rapidly be advanced into positions of authority and responsibility and become the instructors of men introduced later into the organization.
In order to secure men possessing these qualifications the military authorities and the Storage Committee have called for the co-operation of several schools of business administration. The plan is that the schools of business administration shall give preliminary training in stores organization and management, emphasizing fundamental principles and the best methods in industrial practice ; and that the military authorities shall give the men receiving such preliminary training, a final training in a military stores school, already in process of establishment, which shall emphasize actual field practice.
Stores service is of as great importance and honor as any other form of military service. The military organization as a whole is able to operate efficiently only when all of its parts operate efficiently. The work of any branch is as essential as that of any other branch to the success of the whole.
The School of Training for Military Stores Service organized by the Tuck School manifests the desire of Dartmouth College to co-operate with the government in the solution of one phase of the problem of building up a great military organization for the prosecution of the war.
Admission to a special school of preliminary training is not a guarantee that the student will be offered military service. In recruiting men for the military school of training in field practice, preference will be given to men who have received preliminary training in approved schools. The student's guarantee that he will be recruited for the final training is his own analysis of the military situation, realization of the fact that a large number of men will be required and the assurance that preference will be given to those who have received preliminary training in approved schools. The nature of the emergency problem confronting the military authorities and the probability of a student's finding an opportunity for entrance into service is indicated by an official suggestion that "we will need these men before they have completed their courses" and "it may be stated fairly positively that all the students in authorized schools who have reasonable aptitude for the work will be requisitioned."
The military departments in which the stores function is important are the Ordnance Department, .which is responsible for the supply principally of artillery, small arms, ammunition and miscellaneous supplies used in the artillery branch; the Engineer Corps, which is responsible for such supplies as cement, sand, structural iron, etc.; and the Quartermaster Department, which is responsible for the great variety of other articles which constitute military supplies. The first students to receive preliminary and final training will probably be requisitioned for the Ordnance Department.
Graduates of the Tuck School and of Dartmouth College, undergraduates of Senior rank in Tuck School and in Dartmouth College, and a few juniors in Dartmouth College of maturity and proved ability are eligible for admission. Selection is made oh the basis of scholarship, initiative, capacity for leadership, and business experience.
The general aim of the course is to give the students (1) a background of the principles of business organization and of the new spirit and the new methods in industrial management; (2) a background of the principles of such sciences as are auxiliary to storeskeeping — accounting and statistics; (3) thorough training in the principles and the best practice in industrial storeskeeping; (4) a background of the principles of military organization; (5) "paper work", or training in the use of the forms of the Ordnance and Quartermaster's department; (6) military drill, for the development of physique, conservation of health, and discipline in obedience and self-control. Especial emphasis is given to item 3 above.
Instruction is. given by (1) lectures; (2) textbooks; (3) problems; and (4) field work. Especial importance is attached to instruction by the assignment of problems and by field work. Especial effort is made to make the problems and the field work typical of actual conditions, met in military stores service, especially with respect to the variety of materials handled, emergency calls and the adaptation of general principles to unexpected and limiting situations.
The composition of the student body makes possible an unusually efficient organization for instruction purposes. The student body consists of undergraduates, recent graduates of limited business experience and earlier graduates of considerable business experience. Advantage is taken of this combination and the students are organized into squads, each squad consisting of seven undergraduates, a leader (a graduate of considerable business experience) and an assistant leader (a graduate of moderate business experience). The leaders and assistant leaders act as assistant instructors, and are responsible for the development of their squads and for reports of the work of individual men.
