The article discusses about the qualifications for college accounting. The position impliedly taken is critically examined and a number of paradoxes that result is illustrated. The business school faculties have been criticized by employers, including accountants, virtually an infinite number of times, because of the graduates' inability to communicate effectively. Yet the act of passing the CPA examination resulting in the awarding of the certificate, which may have been accomplished without so much as a single high school course in English, supposedly qualifies the recipient of the certificate to pass upon the communicative ability of the college accounting student. The very nature of accounting is such that an accounting instructor must rely upon his knowledge of other subjects in his discussions and explanations of accounting. The teaching of even a survey course in accounting or federal income taxation to students majoring in economics, engineering, psychology and many other fields would quickly prove this point to the doubtful. Formal education is no panacea, but neither is practical experience. Surely the depth and breadth of a person's knowledge can be more quickly expanded through formal education.

A topic which has of late been receiving attention from accountants is that of their legal responsibility, not only to clients but to third parties, the client's creditors and stockholders in the U.S. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the characteristics of reported third party actions against accountants. All these actions were brought at common law and were instituted by third parties seeking to recover in damage losses supposedly sustained as a result of a contended proper reliance upon the independent accountants' allegedly negligent or fraudulent misrepresentations. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the development of the common law principles governing third party actions against accountants, but a brief statement of these principles may facilitate an understanding of a portion of the material, which follows that, in general, the major principles are accountants may not be held liable to third parties for negligence, and accountants may be held liable to third parties for fraud.