Abstract The purpose of this paper is to show the growth of instruction in accounting in the U.S. universities and colleges from 1900 to the present, as of June 1927. The interest in accounting has also grown rapidly in secondary schools, normal schools, and foreign schools in this same period, but the scope of this study is restricted to the U.S. universities and colleges. The year 1900 was selected as a starting point because instruction in accounting prior to that time was not very important. In fact, even during the first few years following 1900 there was not much development in accounting instruction in the universities; and in such work as was given the art and science of bookkeeping were emphasized rather than the fundamental principles of accounting. In order to determine the extent of this growth a study was made of the courses in accounting as shown by the catalogues of forty two of the leading universities and colleges. In this study the catalogues were carefully examined for each year from 1900 to 1926, inclusive. In addition, in order to determine definitely the growth in the number of schools giving courses in accounting, the catalogues of seventy-five additional universities and colleges were studied for the year 1900, 101 for 1910, 303 for 1916, and 575 for 1926.

Abstract In spite of the multiplication of schools of accountancy during the last twenty-five years, a relatively small percentage of the men who enter the profession have graduated from the recognized schools. This is no doubt due in large part to a lack of cooperation between the school and the profession for a purpose which would be mutually advantageous. Some progress is this respect has been made in the last few years by the establishment of a Bureau of Placements by the American Institute of Accountants, but the conditions of employment laid down there in leave much to be desired, and seem designed rather to give the student control of his position instead of permitting the employer to control the student. To illustrate how important is the correlation of theory with practice, it is only necessary to point out that in any given piece of work it would be practically an endless task to carry out in full every operation and every test which the theory would make possible. An audit carried out along these lines would be prohibitive in cost, and its result would be no more certain.

Abstract This article presents two fables to illustrate some principles of accounting. A natural series of events described in one fable put into the hands of a character, called T, the characteristic elements of real double-entry book- keeping. This man, intelligent and observant by hypothesis, could not have been long in finding out that every transaction gave rise to a double recording, that every sum written in the debit of one of the two accounts figured also in the credit of the other, and that as a consequence, the total of the debits were equal to the total of the credits, and finally, that the debit balance of one of the two accounts was in reality, and of necessity, equal to the credit balance of the other. The principles of double-entry were thus clearly formulated at first without the men who conceived them comprehending their significance. The other fable tells that there was in the old Roman law, a very definite procedure of contracting a binding debt and a set form of preliminary conversation. There was an equally definite procedure for transferring a debt to a third party.

I. Introductory: The problem of depreciation, 185. — II. The case against accrued depreciation, 189. — III. Current criticisms of Allison's argument, 191. — IV. Depreciation where the rates are based on the strict investment principle, 195. — V. Depreciation where the rates are based on cost of reproduction as a measure of “present value,” 198. — VII. Depreciation where the rates are based on actual cost of the present property. The “historical-cost” basis, 207. — Conclusions, 211.

Abstract Accounting and statistics, are similar in their uses, for both are used as tools of control. They are also similar in their method, bearing, so to speak, a family resemblance, for accounting and statistics may be regarded as offspring of the single parent, quantitative method of analysis. The quantitative method of analysis has been very successful in the natural sciences, because most natural phenomena can be easily segregated and measured. This method has been the basis of many of the important scientific discoveries of recent years. In fact, it has been asserted that progress in the natural sciences has always waited upon the development of adequate quantitative technique. In the social sciences also it has been maintained that adequate control can only be obtained from better quantitative treatment of the phenomena. It is, of course, often difficult to measure economic phenomena accurately, nevertheless the measurement is necessary. The business enterprise organized for private profit has accordingly developed a technique of measuring and recording it. Facts, and business policies are now formed primarily on the basis of the quantitative data available in accounting and statistical report.

Abstract The article focuses on antecedents of double-entry in bookkeeping. It is proposed in this paper to follow the genealogy of bookkeeping back beyond those parental ancestors whose respectability was so ably proved at the time. The purpose here will be to trace out those blood-lines of preparental inheritance which finally converged at a certain time and place, there to confer certain characteristics upon the offspring. In trying to perceive the forces which produced double-entry, two questions, must be answered in the process. First, what were the antecedent elements out of which double-entry finally evolved. An answer is needed to this question, so that one may better appreciate how closely accounting has been, and still is, related to several collateral fields. Second, what surrounding conditions were necessary to give vitality to these antecedent elements? The antecedents of double-entry, those factors which in time became so interwoven as to render double-entry inevitable, are all familiar quantities; some of them are very old and some are very obvious, but all of them are, in the writer's opinion, indispensable. The art of writing is an indispensable antecedent, since bookkeeping is before all else a record; arithmetic is essential also, since bookkeeping is a sequence of simple computations, even though they are cast into certain forms; private property, since bookkeeping is concerned only with recording the facts about property and property rights.