Abstract Teachers of accounting faces once more the perennial problem of what to teach and how to teach it, there is perhaps even more than ordinary occasion for considering whether accepted methods are acceptable and recognized modes worthy of recognition. On many points there are good reasons for doubt that presentations are sound and on some for certainty that they are not. In matters of record-keeping method and procedure one may be sure of shortcomings when one finds that one is laboriously teaching in the classroom and laboratory methods which have been almost completely superseded or modernized in every well-organized business concern. The purpose of these remarks is the discussion of some instances in point. To the writer it has always seemed curious that teachers of any subject should need to be adjured to keep their teaching abreast of standard practice in their field. Surely the individual whose time is given almost exclusively to research, to reasoning and to elucidation of principles and practices should lead the way in the development of those principles and practices. In accounting instruction, however, there seem always to be many who conceive it as their function merely to learn what is being done in practice-alas, often, no more than what has been done at some past time-and to interpret, explain and justify it to their students.

Abstract The journal entry is all important bookkeeping mechanism which serves as a means of converting a non-technical statement of a transaction into a species of technically-formed, intermediate statistical record. It is, moreover, particularly characteristic of double entry-more characteristic perhaps than the ledger-because it so clearly expresses the inevitable duality which is concealed in all transactions. For this reason, undoubtedly, journalizing has always been a very important element in the teaching of double entry book- keeping, and in some countries it is a legal requirement that all transactions pass through the journal. This last probably is due to the desire to have the facts conveniently assembled for authentication rather than to any wish to give further emphasis to the importance of the journal.

Abstract Presents a letter to the editor about the missing addresses of Association members published in the December 1928 issue of the journal "The Accounting Review."

Abstract The determining factor in the establishment of any given business policy is a comparison of the additional income and the additional cost expected to result therefrom. If the former exceeds the latter, the action based on the policy is profitable to an enterprise, regardless of the costs which have been incurred previous to any single business decision. The foregoing principle applies to any given business decision, ranging from a produce dealer's problem of accepting an additional order for 100 pounds of butter at a given price, to a capitalist's problem of whether to build and operate an automobile factory. Differential costs may be defined as the costs which must be incurred if an additional unit of business activity is undertaken, and which seed would be incurred if this additional unit of business activity is not undertaken. All other costs may be designated as residual costs, from the standpoint of that particular portion of output or group of operation, the differential cost of which is being calculated.

Abstract This article deals with some applications of accounting as a tool for social control of economic activity, as opposed to the internal administrative control of a particular business. It is the purpose rather to bring together some facts with which most accountants are familiar, but which have not usually been discussed as presenting similar problems. various aspects of social control through accounts will be set forth under following heads, accounting as a tool for controlling governmental activities, the administration by a government of duties which are primarily economic in nature, accounting for non-profit institutions, governmental uses of accounting to control private enterprises, both public utilities and those enterprises which are not so commonly recognized as being of a public or quasi-public nature, uses of accounting by groups of private enterprises in an attempt to co-ordinate their activities and to increase their individual efficiency, the profession of public accountancy which has developed in the modern economic order. Private enterprises attempt to earn the greatest possible income with the least possible expense, the amount by which income exceeds expense is the measure of the success of a private enterprise. A government, on the other hand, attempts merely to collect sufficient income to cover an agreed expense program over a given period of time.

Reviews the book "Corporation Secretary's Guide," by William H.Crow.

Abstract The appearance a few years ago of a new English translation of Frater Lucas Paciolo's book "De Computis et Scripturis'" raises the question a new of how much, or how little, the art of bookkeeping has changed in the 434 years since 1494 when bookkeeping's first printed book appeared. But one should not open Paciolo's book with the expectation of finding modern practices completely foreshadowed. Nineteenth and twentieth century conditions have, of course, brought about many modifications of what was originally sound method, and have, in some cases, forced the introduction of practices which are of necessity entirely foreign to fifteenth century conditions. From the very beginning certain basic peculiarities of method and form have been associated with bookkeeping. These fundamental characteristics still persist, and, being peculiar to double-entry bookkeeping, form the principal means of setting it apart from other fact-manipulating systems. Ever since the record-keeping methods of bankers and governments were expanded to suit mercantile affairs, bookkeeping has possessed a characteristic theory, a characteristic form, and a characteristic technology.

Abstract Three different groups of people have formulated definitions of the term profit. Each has its own point of view. Economists as a rule are interested, first, in explaining why the phenomenon of profit appears in society or why profits are tolerated and second, in deciding what it is that determines who shall receive the benefit of profits. Here profit is considered a social phenomenon associated with problems of the distribution of the proceeds of society's productive activities among factors responsible for that production. Courts have had to pass upon questions of what is profit in connection with income tax matters and dividend declarations or insolvencies. In the latter case, courts have been mainly interested in seeing that the capital fund is not paid out as dividends to the detriment of creditors of limited liability enterprises and consequently are likely to accept as profit available for dividend all of the proprietorship except the original contribution. In tax cases courts are mainly concerned in construing statutes and thus in passing upon the question of whether the matter at issue was or was not profit within the intention of the legislature and not whether the matter was or was not profit in fact. Businessmen, on the other hand, view profits mainly as a measure of accomplishment. They are, of course, interested in the profit legally available for dividends.