The article focuses on the accounting education in Australia. Upto the year 1954, only the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, had a well established curriculum of accountancy. A full-time student normally takes four subjects a year. The honors course is a four-year one in which the compulsory subjects are covered in the first two years, after which the student enters the final division, comprising special honors lectures and seminars, with examination at the end of the fourth year of his studies. During this last year he is also required to submit a thesis on a subject within a specialized field of his own choice. The first of these courses is regarded as an introduction to accounting method, with students required to maintain a small set of double-entry records. It covers the theory of accounting and interpretation of transactions, ledger, journal and its subdivisions, trial balance, control accounts and subsidiary ledgers, preparation of reports, balance day adjustments, unsystematized records, non-trading enterprises, partnerships, joint stock companies, closing accounts of vendor, funds statement, departmental accounts, branch accounts, consignments, joint ventures, columnar accounting, analyzed journals and auditing.

This article has attempted to establish the position that the significance of business income for corporate reporting lies primarily in its usefulness as a measure of corporate performance in diverting a stream of resources from the economy, and that it should be developed primarily to serve this function. It has been shown that concepts of income which will best serve as a tax base, as a factor in rate regulation, as an element of national income estimates, and as a basis for managerial decisions are all dependent upon specialized and divergent factors which are related to a variety of objectives. Each of these uses constitutes a special purpose problem by itself. As was suggested at the beginning of the discussion, an acceptance of this thesis is merely a prelude to the major work of deciding upon the business income concept and the means of measuring income so conceived which will best serve this basic need. The prelude in this case, however, should not be written after the major score is completed. Until an area of agreement is reached as to the purpose to be served by the measurement of business income the discussion of the business income problem proceeds in a vacuum.

Most of the everyday problems which plague practicing accountants in the realm of inventory accounting are somewhat divorced from the theory of inventory valuation and its inevitable relationship to income determination. Any accountant worth his salt has learned long ago to shy away from the word "value." The "value" of something implies its worth, and one doesn't have to be a timid soul to shudder at the insuperable problems which surround an attempt to determine the worth of anything. Value theory tells that such inventories must be worth the present discounted amount of the net receipts which will ultimately flow into the business as a result of their sale. The barrier which stands between value theory and the accounting treatment of inventories is essentially the realization convention. When a sale takes place, or where production under a fixed contract occurs, or where production of goods which sell on an organized market at given prices is completed in all these cases the accountant is willing to grant that the evidence is satisfactory.

The article focuses on the evolution of accounting functions. During the last hundred years the roles of accounting have undergone changes as startling as the developments in methods and techniques of production. These changes in accounting functions, however, are less obvious to the untrained observer than the giant industrial strides which have made The U.S., the economic envy of the world. Yet the evolution of the two are closely related. The roles which accounting has played at various times have been directly related to the needs of the businessman. It is this thesis which will be explored in the following paragraphs. Unquestionably, many ideas and procedures in accounting have developed fortuitously or have been the result of theorizing which was entirely independent of any pressing requirement of the moment. It is also readily apparent that the pressure of government upon accounting development has been significant. With the current public regulation of many business activities, the administration of economic affairs has transcended the management of the individual enterprise. When this change has taken place, accounting has followed management into the broader area with the development of a social control function of accounts.

There are two basic approaches to the teaching of accounting fundamentals. One, using the deductive method of reasoning, introduces first statements in the hope that an understanding of the end product of accounting will capture the students' interest and broaden their comprehension of the subject. It is also hoped that it will permit them to appreciate reasons and the need for the detailed procedures. The other approach, the inductive, begins with the account and works forward in a logical manner through the accounting procedures to statements. Many texts have been written using one or the other of these two approaches but it appears that the statement approach has gained the widest acceptance in the past decade. The reason for its popularity is the belief that it gives students an overall grasp of the subject more quickly. Some may question this conclusion, but all will agree that the goal of an early understanding of the complete picture of the accounting procedures is desirable.

Reviews the book "Profit Measurement and Price Changes," by K. Lacey.

The article presents the report of the Committee on Auditing Education appointed by the American Accounting Association. The concern of the committee was to secure an evaluation of the job the colleges are doing in preparing students for public accounting. The committee solicited the opinions of public accountants along the above lines by the use of a questionnaire which was mailed to 98 local firms and ten national firms. Responses were received from 57 per cent of the local firms and from all of the national firms. The questionnaire invited an expression of opinion regarding which objective colleges should adopt in preparing students for the public accounting profession. Poor English and lack of ability to write and speak effectively are the most serious of the weakness of college graduates reported by the public accountants. The public accountants believe that such weaknesses can be corrected by requiring accounting students to take more courses in grammar and public speaking slanted to the interests of accountants.