Abstract The article focuses on socialized accounts in the United States. The author says that the industrial evolution is important in the United States. The new era of the twenties was real as its ideal of full production and abundant living is not lost. The first phase of the evolution of accountancy was likewise the longest. It consisted of two distinct movements. The earliest was concerned with the formation of the accounting mechanism or methodology-bookkeeping; the later movement covered the expansion of double-entry methodology to suit subsequent conditions. An account for money as well as goods is not difficult to reconstruct. A consciousness of proprietorship is more fundamental to the expansion of account-keeping into double entry bookkeeping than bilateral accounts, subtraction by contraentry, equality of debit and credit, or any the other peculiarities of double entry. The second phase of accountancy is related to attempts to secure some measure of control over private affairs in the social interest. The approach was through enforcing a partial sharing of otherwise private business data, of instituting, as it were, semi-public accounts. The third phase will probably carry the socialization of accounts still further.

Reviews the book "Abhandlung über die Buchhaltung," by Luca Pacioli.

Reviews three books related to accounting. "Die Betriebswirtschaft," by H. Nicklisch; "Bilanz der Aktiengesellschaft," by R. Ruth and K. Schmaltz; "Wirtschaftsprüfung und Revisionswesen," by C.E. Poeschel.

Reviews the book "Wages and Wealth," by Roy Dickinson.

Abstract The work of teachers of accounting in colleges or universities falls into two broad divisions. One of the two major responsibilities is the training of students, equipping them with such knowledge of accounting as will be most useful to them in the business world, in professional practice and in all the activities of life. The other of the major responsibilities is the active promotion of research in the accounting field, the determination of sound principles and practices, the development of adequate standards and the formulation of ideals which should guide all those engaged in the application of accounting to economic and social problems. In the author's opinion, accounting teachers have given greater recognition to the first of these responsibilities than to the second. Teachers have built up a great body of teaching materials, and have evolved courses of training which are extensive in their scope and intensive in their method. Conditions in the fifteen years prior to 1930 gave rise to a phenomenal growth in the teaching of accounting in colleges and universities. There are now hundreds of schools and teachers offering accounting courses, thousands of students enrolled in these courses, as of March 1933.

Reviews the book "Advanced Accounting," by Frank H. Streightoff.

Reviews the book "Business Under the Recovery Act," by Robert Valenstein and E.B. Weiss.

Abstract In determining the investment base, several alternatives immediately occur to either the accountant or the economist. Total assets is one possibility. Total assets less intangibles is another. The sum of all items of corporate capital structure; bonded debt, capital stock and surplus and undivided profits, is a third. Still a fourth base might be the sum of capital stock and surplus, without the inclusion of funded debt. Capital assets may be stated on the basis of cost or on the basis of a valuation. Just because, in the case of any individual corporation, assets may be stated upon a cost basis or upon the basis of an appraisal, it is often believed that no valid general figures can be developed. Many small companies overvalue their property accounts. On the other hand, a number of large companies are quite conservative in their charges to depreciation, obsolescence and other reserves. If charges to depreciation are not separated from charges to other reserves, if revaluations of plant and equipment are not explained in detail in the annual report, then the task of making allowances for conservatism or extravagance in estimating such margins of error is intensified.