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.

British accountants have made an important contribution to the Commonwealth, in recent years, as a result of the Labor Party's plan to nationalize 20% of the economy. This section included the Bank of England and seven major industries-civil aviation, cables and wireless, coal, electricity, gas, cotton and transportation. In each of the fields named, public corporations were set up to operate the enterprises concerned in the national interest. Parliament placed the entire responsibility for operation of the coal industry upon the National Coal Board with no reference to divisions or areas, but area boards were appointed in the gas and electricity industries and in the transport field a number of executives were appointed to serve as the Transport Commission's agents. Compensation was not on a uniform basis. For the Bank of England and Cables and Wireless PLC, for instance, it was established on the basis of net maintainable revenue; for railways, air transport and electricity it was set on stock exchange quotations at stated dates and for collieries, on a global amount fixed by a tribunal.

There are three relatively simple methods in common use for determining the rate of interest in installment payment plans. These are known as the Constant Ratio, Series of Payments and Interest at End methods. They have been developed from independent assumption, apparently without any thought that they might be approximations to the more complicated Compound Interest method. In a paper in the American Mathematical Monthly it is shown algebraically that the above methods are approximations to the Compound Interest Method. In order to obtain a better understanding, let us assume temporarily that we know the rate and form a schedule of the payment of the debt. The magnitudes of the rates for the approximate formulas may be compared by means of the areas of the trapezoids. The rate is inversely proportional to the area. The areas for the series of payments, constant ratio, and interest at end methods are in order. This solution is often approximated by means of interpolation in tables. It is the purpose however to compare the compound interest method with the above methods and to present a simple but more accurate approximate formula which can be used without knowledge of the theory of finance.

The approach to courses for all fields of accounting, public, private, cost, tax and governmental, represents something of a paradox today. Viewed by some as too practical for admission to the cultural-centered liberal arts curriculum, by others as a field of graduate study, these courses on many campuses have been sustained largely by the intellectual prowess of faculties and the ever-increasing demand of students for practical training in areas of employment arising from the war and post-war economics. Even the most cursory glance at recent college catalogues reveals that accounting courses appear under a variety of departments, most frequently under business administration or social science, but sometimes correlated with instruction in mathematics, statistics or secretarial studies, and less frequently as part of the pre-engineering or pre-law curriculum. Teachers of all phases of accountancy in liberal arts colleges, and indeed in other institutions of higher learning, have made a valiant, if at times a somewhat ineffectual, effort to train students to cope with the rapidly shifting economic climate, and to relate the complex technical knowledge of this age to human progress.

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.

Reviews the book "The Accounting Mission," by F. Sewell Bray.

Reviews three books on accounting. "Lord Plender: Some Writings and Speeches," edited by Lady Plender; "Random Reminiscences," by Arthur Cutforth; "Case Lore or Leaves From the Notebook of a Professional Accountant," by Ernest Evan Spicer.

Reviews the book "The Accountancy of Changing Price Levels."

Reviews the book "Shirtsleeve Economics, a Common Sense Survey," by William A. Paton.