It would seem, therefore, that statements based on historical cost are best because they are the most useful, provided that a suitable analysis of the income statement is made. This analysis can easily be made on internal statements prepared for management because no problems arise from the fact that current-cost figures cannot be obtained by purely objective methods. Such statements would be based more on objective data than budgets now widely used by management, because they would be based on assumptions as to current economic conditions only, whereas budgets are based upon assumptions as to future economic conditions as well. Statements for stockholders and the public are more of a problem because of the lack of objectivity in current-cost data. However, statements based upon historical cost obtained in the usual manner, analyzed as described above, are more objective than statements which have been completely recast. It may soon be possible to extend the concept of objectivity enough to encompass the kind of income analysis suggested above, since it would be tied into an income statement based on objectively determinable historical cost.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting Analysis and Control," by Gordon Shillinglaw.

In a recent article in the Journal of Accountancy, Professor David Thompson discussed the advantages of and the methods and procedures for making an accounting internship program for public accounting work. The author would like to expand upon it in two respects, first to describe a second method of handling a public accounting internship program for schools on a semester basis which has worked well at Pennsylvania State College, and second to show that the internship program should be used for all three fields into which accounting graduates may go, private or industrial and governmental as well as public accounting. There are one or two other features of the system which are perhaps worth mentioning. One is that the public accounting firms interview students during the spring semester of their junior year for internships starting the following January. All of cooperating firms have told that this was not too early, and such a plan does have several advantages. In the first place, the firms can interview the prospective interns at the same time as June graduates, thus making only one trip to the campus a year since public accounting firms are not normally interested in February graduates.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting for Management," by W.A. Terrill and A.W. Patrick.