As members of the ACM and of this new and dynamic field, we have a responsibility for our own continuing education—in computer components, in logic and languages, in the structure of business and other organizations and in the machines that are to simulate them. Beyond this we have a responsibility for the education of the youth of America and the general public at large in the techniques and potentialities of these new devices. Before the end of this year there will be perhaps 500 stored program digital computers, for example, each employing twenty professional persons on the average. Suppose five years from now there are 10,000 such machines. This implies that at our present rate of growth there might be 100,000 professional persons, most of them new, involved in this area. It is our problem to see that the background and education of these people is as high as possible.

The ACM stands as a common meeting ground for a variety of interests. Computers—or information machines—tend to unify the various sciences by recognizing their common structure. Our organization therefore stands at a crossroad in an extremely dynamic situation. We must continue to interpret our many interests one to another—administrators to mathematicians, programmers to logical designers, educators to members of industry—all linked by this common use of a remarkable set of machines of which we have not yet seen the final limitations.