This article analysis a questionnaire sent to 1000 alumni of the University of Illinois, College of Commerce. The question as presented to the alumni on this topic was adopted from one of similar type and purpose drafted by the American Council on Education in a survey it made several years ago on Business Education at the Collegiate Level. Of the 1000 questionnaires sent out 471 complete replies were received and 40 were returned because of unsatisfactory addresses. Of the 471 replies received 424 or 90% listed principles of accountancy, 394 or 84% listed written English, and 391 or 83% listed principles of economics as of primary importance. Another substantiation of the point of view of the alumni relative to the first five subjects in importance is the fact that they were also the ones recognized as the most indispensable. Not even one of the 471 respondents marked principles of accountancy or business law as of doubtful or no value and only one each marked principles of economics, written English and oral English in that category.

The elementary course in accounting, as it is taught in most instances today, is specifically designed to provide a base upon which to build a structure of accounting knowledge. This base consists to some extent of the broad principles of accounting, but often, to a much larger extent, of detailed methods of technique and procedure. At the outset several questions are bound to arise concerning any changes in the elementary course. It has been the writer's experience that sixty to eighty per cent of the first year accounting students are merely fulfilling requirements for a degree and have no intention of taking additional accounting courses. If such is the case, the needs of so large a majority cannot be reasonably ignored. Students often have no intention of taking more than the minimum of accounting until they have completed the first year course. Thus, students taking the non-accounting major course frequently find an interest kindled which leads them on to the advanced accounting courses. The elementary course, however taught, is not sufficient to make the student an expert accountant. It does provide him with the basic mechanics of recording, classifying and summarizing the usual transactions of business. It does not provide him with an adequate basis for interpreting and analyzing the accountant's work.

Many of the experienced teachers, as well as some of the new ones, have developed devices and techniques for the presentation of certain knotty aspects of accounting. This article presents suggestions that might well be made available to other members of the teaching profession through publication in the magazine "Accounting Review." This article presents a method of elementary presentation of volume, cost and profit relationships. The material that follows is designed to be used in the classroom as a simple but highly effective method of explaining and illustrating (a) the concept of unit costs, and practical managerial uses of unit costs (b) the mild enigma that a reduction of unit sales price can result on occasion in an increase of aggregate net profits, and(c) the concepts of marginal costs, break-even point, and optimum profits. A class period of one hour is usually sufficient for presentation and discussion of the subject. The material should be presented in a sequence of steps.

In the study of standard costs, the learner usually has difficulty in determining variances in the accounting for the elements of cost and in setting up entries to record these variances. Generally, less difficulty is encountered in computing and recording variances for direct materials and direct labor, where variances are usually considered to arise from two sources, price variations and quantity variations, than is encountered in computing and recording variances for manufacturing expenses, where variances are usually considered to arise from three sources, budget excess variation, idle capacity variation, and efficiency variation. This discussion will disregard the problems arising out of the handling of variances for direct materials and direct labor, it will present a method which has been used successfully by students in learning to determine and to record the three variances that arise in the handling of the manufacturing expenses. Since manufacturing expenses are entered at an applied rate, a difference will usually exist between the actual and the applied expenses at the end of the period. This difference is classified as over-or under-applied manufacturing expenses and is, in reality, a price variation.