It seems evident that more than seventy-five years ago some men in large cities called themselves public accountants. They audited or "checked up" books with the object mainly of discovering or preventing irregularities rather than for constructive work, although systems work was undertaken. Somewhat later the foreign shareholders and bondholders of a number of large enterprises, mainly but not exclusively railroads, desired that the accounts should be audited and sent out auditors front England to perform such services. This practice led to the opening of offices in the United States by English and Scotch auditors; some of the early firms were established in this way. American accountants gave increasing competition. The earliest accounting organization, The American Association, was formed with the purpose of raising the professional standards and "for social and benefit purposes." Early attempts to elevate the profession by means of collegiate instruction in accounting for those wishing to enter the profession were unsuccessful. Wharton's School of Finance and Economy, however, was formed in Philadelphia, and accounting was included in its curriculum. The desire on the part of the members of the profession to receive recognition was carried to the New York State Board of Regents. With the Board's willingness to administer examinations an attempt was made to secure legal recognition from the state. The first attempt in 1895 to get legislation for the legal recognition of Certified Public Accountants failed, but during the period to follow the public accountants continued their efforts with considerable success.

One of the accounting practices questioned today concerns the reporting of Federal income taxes. From the theoretical aspects of the nature of taxes, the matching principle, and the going concern concept, the arguments for tax allocation appear to be without adequate support. However, the arguments against a given accounting practice must be supported by empirical evidence as well as theoretical analysis. Empirical evidence relates to the existence of results from the practice of accounting that meets the basic objective of accounting information-fairness to all parties. A cursory review of a number of major corporate balance sheets indicates, as one would expect, that the deferred Federal income tax reserve account is becoming embarrassingly large. This reserve typically is disclosed on the right hand side of the balance sheet as a deferred credit or in the twilight zone under the caption reserves. It is not specifically classified as part of the interest of owners, creditors, employees, government or any other group. Those firms electing not to use tax allocation procedures do not reflect a reserve in their balance sheet. The reported earnings in their income statement, therefore, are higher than for the firms electing to normalize earnings. Since consistency does not exist on an inter-industry or intra-industry level, the problem of comparing financial statements is augmented.

Reviews the book `The Struggle for Status: A History of Accounting Education,' by Glenn Van Wyhe.

Reviews the book "The Audit Director's Guide: How to Serve Effectively on the Corporate Audit Committee," by Louis Braiotta.

The article reports that intuitive explanations of various matrix algebra concepts, as contrasted to matrix manipulations techniques, may facilitate the accounting student's application of these concepts to real-world Problems; more importantly, his understanding of these problems may be increased. Often diligent study of matrix algebra applications in managerial accounting courses ends only with the mastery of inversion techniques used to solve systems of equations; consequently the full potential of matrix algebra goes unharvested since the appropriate situational interpretation of the matrix inverse remains unexplored. Described herein is an approach to the demonstration of the conceptual significance of the matrix inverse which will enhance the accounting student's ability to apply effectively a fundamental quantitative tool, the matrix inverse. This approach is recommended for use in any managerial accounting course which considers matrix algebra or linear programming. Accounting educators have recognized that accounting curricula objectives must include the development of conceptual understanding as well as the development of procedural skills.