Abstract This article focuses on the faculty residency program in the in the U.S. as of January 1954. For several years in the U.S. programs of student internships have been available at certain institutions and through certain firms for the benefit of both students and employers. While the details of programs have varied, the essential features are somewhat similar. Because of the success of the student internship program it was doubtless inevitable that a similar program for accounting faculty members should be proposed. The purpose of the program would be to provide those without practical experience an opportunity to become familiar with the details of actual accounting practice, and to offer an opportunity to those with accounting experience either to broaden theft experience or to refresh it. The reaction to the proposed faculty residency program has been sufficiently favorable to encourage the American Accounting Association to participate in the actual arrangements for contacts between interested faculty members and participating firms and companies.

Abstract To some groups, price stabilization is a matter of profit or loss and perhaps of adjustment within one business or industry. To the U.S. Office of Price Stabilization the subject is exceedingly complex. People must consider not just costs, profits or losses of a single group, but also their relationship to other businesses and industries, as well as to the nation as a whole. Now when Office of Price Administration (OPA) was set up, there was for most goods a general balance between supply and demand. There were sufficient unused production facilities to make supply quite sensitive to changes in demand. OPA's job, therefore, at first was merely to control the price of a few commodities whose demand was beginning to outrun supply because of defense requirements. Actually, this was not inflation control, but war cost control. The present emergency caught us at a time when there was very little slack in the economy to permit a self-adjusting between supply and demand. The sudden expansion of defense buying had an immediate effect upon prices.

Abstract The development of the balance-sheet approach is justly regarded as a significant contribution to the teaching of accounting, in that it permits education in accounting to be developed logically, rather than by the study of a series of rules that can have little meaning until the complete accounting cycle has been presented. Nevertheless, the balance-sheet approach is not without its critics, most of whom are primarily concerned with the fact that this method tends to plant in the mind of a student the incorrect thought that a balance sheet shows what a business is "worth." There is other evidence to suggest the desirability of removing inventories from the current-asset category. With regard to the question on the soundness of the "lower of cost or market" rule, one should be impressed with its limited applicability. It serves the single purpose of charging a price-level loss to the period in which it occurs. This is because present accounting principles, which are founded on the assumption of a stable money, are not adequate to cope with price-level changes.

Abstract The accountant's main task consists of the periodic determination of the revenue, costs, income and financial status of the business enterprise. In this connection, accounting has been defined as the art of recording, classifying, summarizing and interpreting. The statement accounting for variation in net profit is usually one of the rough spots encountered in intermediate accounting and the particular difficulty lies in the analysis of the factors causing the change in gross profit. Members of the Committee on Visual Aids are currently available to render assistance, upon request, to individual teachers of accounting. Highly effective use of visual aids has been made particularly in such courses of the accounting curriculum as cost accounting, auditing, elementary and advanced accounting theory, accounting reports, the analysis of financial statements and Certified Public Accountant problem review. Teachers of accounting are urged to call upon the membership of tile Committee on Visual Aids for any assistance desired in connection with attempts to develop visual aids applications or in resolving problems encountered.

Abstract This article analysis a questionnaire sent to 1000 alumni of the University of Illinois, College of Commerce. The question as presented to the alumni on this topic was adopted from one of similar type and purpose drafted by the American Council on Education in a survey it made several years ago on Business Education at the Collegiate Level. Of the 1000 questionnaires sent out 471 complete replies were received and 40 were returned because of unsatisfactory addresses. Of the 471 replies received 424 or 90% listed principles of accountancy, 394 or 84% listed written English, and 391 or 83% listed principles of economics as of primary importance. Another substantiation of the point of view of the alumni relative to the first five subjects in importance is the fact that they were also the ones recognized as the most indispensable. Not even one of the 471 respondents marked principles of accountancy or business law as of doubtful or no value and only one each marked principles of economics, written English and oral English in that category.

Abstract The elementary course in accounting, as it is taught in most instances today, is specifically designed to provide a base upon which to build a structure of accounting knowledge. This base consists to some extent of the broad principles of accounting, but often, to a much larger extent, of detailed methods of technique and procedure. At the outset several questions are bound to arise concerning any changes in the elementary course. It has been the writer's experience that sixty to eighty per cent of the first year accounting students are merely fulfilling requirements for a degree and have no intention of taking additional accounting courses. If such is the case, the needs of so large a majority cannot be reasonably ignored. Students often have no intention of taking more than the minimum of accounting until they have completed the first year course. Thus, students taking the non-accounting major course frequently find an interest kindled which leads them on to the advanced accounting courses. The elementary course, however taught, is not sufficient to make the student an expert accountant. It does provide him with the basic mechanics of recording, classifying and summarizing the usual transactions of business. It does not provide him with an adequate basis for interpreting and analyzing the accountant's work.

Abstract Many of the experienced teachers, as well as some of the new ones, have developed devices and techniques for the presentation of certain knotty aspects of accounting. This article presents suggestions that might well be made available to other members of the teaching profession through publication in the magazine "Accounting Review." This article presents a method of elementary presentation of volume, cost and profit relationships. The material that follows is designed to be used in the classroom as a simple but highly effective method of explaining and illustrating (a) the concept of unit costs, and practical managerial uses of unit costs (b) the mild enigma that a reduction of unit sales price can result on occasion in an increase of aggregate net profits, and(c) the concepts of marginal costs, break-even point, and optimum profits. A class period of one hour is usually sufficient for presentation and discussion of the subject. The material should be presented in a sequence of steps.

Abstract This article presents information the teaching methods of accounting. Beyond the first few weeks of the elementary course, too little emphasis is placed on the fundamental accounting equation. As a result the student threads his way through the first year of accounting at best understanding certain relationships in vacuo but probably in most cases accepting them on faith. He then proceeds to memorize these relationships and hopes that the examination situation will be sufficiently similar to the one he learned by rote so that he can cope with it. Perhaps the ideal solution to this difficulty is one which places greater stress on the equation in the first course in accounting, but this probably would require a fundamental revision of course structure with the concomitant sacrifice of other worth-while materials. One result that follows from this lack of stress on the equation is the necessity to spend the first part of the second course in accounting on a general review of the basic accounting process.

Abstract One advantage of taking a CPA Review course from an experienced instructor is that it provides the inexperienced candidate with an over-view of the types of questions and subjects most apt to be touched upon. The candidate needs to acquire perspective. Many students taking the examination immediately upon finishing their university training, do not know whether three hours spent in a review of process costs will be as valuable as three hours' review of the break even point or perhaps the subject of joint ventures. A thorough application of the principles of commercial law is useful in recognizing accounting consequences of legal documents such as contracts for the sale of merchandise, bills of lading, underwriting contracts, stock option agreements, pension plans, and employee profit-sharing plans. Careful attention must be directed to outlining the special rights, privileges, and priorities of various classes of common and preferred stock. Restrictions on dividends resulting from long-term bond indentures must be properly explained. These are just a few of the items encountered.

Abstract In the study of standard costs, the learner usually has difficulty in determining variances in the accounting for the elements of cost and in setting up entries to record these variances. Generally, less difficulty is encountered in computing and recording variances for direct materials and direct labor, where variances are usually considered to arise from two sources, price variations and quantity variations, than is encountered in computing and recording variances for manufacturing expenses, where variances are usually considered to arise from three sources, budget excess variation, idle capacity variation, and efficiency variation. This discussion will disregard the problems arising out of the handling of variances for direct materials and direct labor, it will present a method which has been used successfully by students in learning to determine and to record the three variances that arise in the handling of the manufacturing expenses. Since manufacturing expenses are entered at an applied rate, a difference will usually exist between the actual and the applied expenses at the end of the period. This difference is classified as over-or under-applied manufacturing expenses and is, in reality, a price variation.