Knowledge that Transforms

Reviews the book "Business Forecasting, Principles and Practices," by Frank D. Newbury.

Reviews the book "Elementary Accounting," by Perry Mason, George B. Stenberg and William Niven.

Abstract A college is a school of higher education, which is organized to provide instruction and study in the higher branches of learning. The focus of the college should, therefore, be on the education of its students, for theoretically this is the basic motivating force behind its organization and existence. The proper type of instructor, among other things, is one who can communicate to his students various concepts, philosophies, the desire to learn, procedure, and a whole host of other material. In the past, there have been very few serious attempts by colleges to study teaching effectiveness of their instructors, and more discouraging than the scanty attempts at such evaluation is the apparent widespread lack of concern with the problem. The way in which the school is organized, the design of its educational program and its administrative practices have little justification except as they stimulate and facilitate educational progress. Until teaching is raised to a position equal in importance, in prestige, and in rewards to research, no amount of manipulation of titles of courses or requisites will make much difference. Judgment as to teachers' success must rest with some responsible individual or group of individuals. No test, rating scale, or other device will furnish definite answers to questions of faculty selection, retention, and promotion.

Reviews the book "Accounting Principles," by J. Hugh Jackson.

Abstract The projected materials can be of great aid to the cost accounting teacher in motivating the students to learn and in making the learning process a meaningful one by presenting to the students in a dramatic way the manufacturing processes to which cost accounting is applied. They speed up the presentation of materials which would otherwise be laboriously placed on the blackboard, or omitted altogether. Projected materials are not a substitute for the teacher or the text but an aid to the teacher. In most accounting courses, the materials are not readily available but must be created. The teacher must then learn to use these aids most effectively. Assignment schedules may need to be adjusted, and daily classroom sequences may need to be rearranged. The teacher will have to work more rather than less. But the work is a pleasure, for it is creative, and the reward is the goal of all teachers-comprehensive, meaningful learning by the students.

Abstract In the 1948 revision of the regulation "Accounting Concepts and Standards Underlying Corporate Financial Statements," importance is attached to adequate presentation and disclosure in financial statements as a requisite for the formation of judgments. For some time the Committee on Concepts and Standards of the American Accounting Association has been considering the general subject of classifications in financial statements, with the objective of amplifying the specifications of this suggested standard. Standards of the Committee on Accounting Concepts and Standards represent the reasoned judgment of at least two-thirds of its members. They are not official pronouncements of the American Accounting Association or of its Executive Committee. They shall not necessarily be viewed as stating rules of current professional conduct or procedure. Rather, they state objectives in the development of accounting principles. Some are intended to have immediate applicability, while others forecast the general direction in which accounting may develop.

Reviews the book "Uniform Accounting Manual for the Electrical Manufacturing Industry."

Abstract This paper may be regarded, according to the author, as an informal interim report by the chairman of the American Accounting Association's committee on social accounting, or as some prefer to call it, national income accounting or national economic accounting. During its first year the committee has been able to reach a wholly united opinion on what its name or its program should be, but it did welcome as one the action by the executive committee that it be established as a permanent committee. Whatever its future field of interest, the committee has been convinced that, to start with, a period of self-education was essential to a rational consideration of the problems that have beset economists and others who have lately specialized in this field. Fascinating techniques suggesting themselves in the course of evolving national-income components and data-building processes generally, together with deep concern over inescapable imperfections in both available material and existing methods of compilation, have served effectually to preoccupy researchers and block consideration of the interpretations put by others on their final product.

Reviews the book "Dicksee's Auditing," by Brian Magee.

Reviews the book "Governmental Accounting," by R.M. Mikesell.