Knowledge that Transforms

Reviews the book "Bookkeeping and Accounting," by J.O. McKinsey.

Reviews the book "New York Laws Affecting Business Corporations," by George E. Bennett.

In 1669 the merchants of Paris, feeling the need of an improved body of commercial law, applied to the king, Louis XIV, for constructive action. The commercial law which the Ordinance of 1673 established in France was from this time on founded on bases so solid and usages so broad and so rational that not only did the Ordinance suffice up to the end of the old regime for the affairs which it controlled, but also the "Code de Commerce," which was promulgated in 1807 and which, with the exceptions of certain parts such as the chapter on failures and bankruptcies, is still in force, made very numerous borrowings from it and even often textually reproduced its articles. The Ordinance of 1673 dealt with the topic "Des Sociétez" in Title IV, which contained fourteen articles. Individuals at an early period in European business history grouped themselves together for collective trading in the fields of banking, tax farming, ordinary trade or trade overseas. The Roman law had established the principle that any partner acting as such within the limits of the legitimate objectives of the enterprise might bind the society.

The Joint Committee on Preparation for the Accounting Profession was established early in 1931 under the auspices of the American Association of University Instructors in Accounting and the American Society of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) with the hope that a means might be found of coordinating more closely the practicing and teaching professions of accounting through a study of some of their more urgent problems; the Committee was charged with the immediate responsibility of reviewing the requirements of the profession reflected in state CPA examinations. Since the first meeting of the Committee, the advice of a good many accounting instructors and professional accountants has been sought; from these conversations have arisen the conclusions not only that a study of examinations is dependent on the larger problem of preparatory training that must precede professional life, but also that preparatory training is itself dependent on the existence of adequately defined and reasonably developed professional standards.

The costs of medical care have been the object of study for several years by a research staff engaged by the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care. The Committee is composed of fifty members, including physicians, dentists, nurses, educators, social workers, social scientists, labor leaders, and industrialists. The purpose of the study has been to determine the amount and distribution of the present costs of medical care, with a view to suggesting methods by which costs of production could be reduced, or by which the financial burden of sickness could be more equitably distributed. Many other individuals and agencies also have been concerned with studying the costs of medical care during the last several years, and the committee has drawn upon their research in the attempt to deal with the problem. Monographs on special subjects have been presented from time to time, and the publication schedule of the committee includes twenty-six titles. Sometime during the year 1932 there will be issued a final report composed of an analysis and interpretation of the findings, with recommendations for the correction of undesirable conditions.

Reviews the book "Financial Problems of Installment Selling," by Otto C. Lorenz and H.M. Mott-Smith.

Reviews the book "Problems in Cost Accounting," by Howard C. Greer and Russell S. Willcox.

Reviews the book "Income Tax Accounting," ed. 7, by J.F. Sherwood.

Reviews the book "What the Figures Mean," by Spencer B. Meredith.

Reviews the book "Real Property Leases and the Federal Income Tax," by Herbert F. Taggart.