Abstract On December 10, 1959, the Company Law Committee was appointed by the President of Great Britain Board of Trade to investigate and recommend changes in the current company law, primarily in the Companies Act, 1948. Lord Jenkins, a prominent British jurist, was appointed chairman, and included among the other thirteen members were William H. Lawson, past-president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and William Watson, a Scottish chartered accountant and treasurer of the Bank of Scotland. The Committee has now reported its recommendations. The Jenkins Committee sent a memorandum to certain organizations and individuals requesting their views on various aspects of companies' legislation. The Jenkins Committee made a number of recommendations, the majority of which are of comparatively little interest to the members of the American accounting profession. It is interesting to speculate whether the recommendations of the Jenkins Committee will be enacted into law. The Committee made no attempt to draft its recommendations into statutory form. It is therefore quite possible that the draftsmen of the bill will not carry out the Committee's intent in some areas.

Abstract The leaders of the accounting profession in the U.S. have frequently expressed the fear that the profession may some day be subjected to onerous statutory control. The profession in the Great Britain at the present time does practice under a more detailed statutory control than that imposed upon accountants in the U.S. This situation provides a clinical case worthy of study. The time period selected for study is that beginning in 1844 and ending with the present time. The year 1844 was selected as the beginning date because in that year the modern era of business incorporation methods came into existence, i.e., a business could be incorporated merely by a formal process of registration. That the quality of an audit of a complex set of transactions is likely to be no better than the qualifications of the auditor performing the audit would appear to be a sell-evident truism. Yet this is a quite modern concept that has emerged in comparatively recent times. Prior to 1844, the general body of proprietors tended to elect two groups of representatives. The one, designated as the managers, operated the enterprise, the other, called the auditors, ascertained that the results of the managerial activities were properly reported back to the main body of proprietors.

Abstract This article focuses on Major J. Lee Nicholson who was looked upon in the U.S. as the father of cost accounting. Accounting is by no means a new profession. There is evidence that men kept accounts as far back as we are able to find evidence of man's ability to write. One can hardly doubt that he kept some kind of mental accounts even before that. But accounting as a profession in its modern sense is relatively young. Many of its traditions have been developed within the life span of men yet living. Accounting is a profession in ferment. Within this same life span its activity has gone from that of the mere keeper of books to that of an honored authority on the entire business sphere. Where it shall be after the next life span is anyone's guess. Major Nicholson was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1863, but spent his early life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because of ill-health, he "retired" to California for the last two years of his life, he died in San Francisco on November 2, 1924.

Abstract This article presents information about the course in computers. The era of the lightning-speed calculations of the electronic computer is here and well established. The machine, however, despite the rantings of the press, is not a brain, it needs a brain, a human brain, to instruct and operate it. The human brain, in turn, needs much instruction before it can instruct the machine. Herein lies a problem which must be faced by most of the colleges and universities in the industrialized countries. Course objectives can vary considerably from school to school and even from department to department within a given school. Conceivably a school with a relatively small business department would only want a course which would acquaint its students with the effects of the impact of computers on the business scene, and equip them with the elementary tools to help them cope with those effects when they enter the business world. At the other pole, a department of engineering may be interested in training engineers in computer design principles, with the aim of improving computer design.

Reviews the book "Statistics for Modern Business Decision Making," by Kyohei Sasaki.

Reviews the book "Electronic Data Processing," by E. Wainright Martin, Jr.

Abstract The article focuses on recommendations made by the 1964 American Accounting Association Committee on Courses and Curricula--Electronic Data Processing. The committee recommended that at the undergraduate level, accounting students should be exposed to electronic data processing in stages. Added emphasis should be placed in the accounting systems course on logical information flows and on multi-dimensional information requirements rather than on the form and content of specific accounting records. At the master's degree level, the student must have at least the same proficiency as an undergraduate, but hopefully it will be at a more sophisticated level. At the doctoral level, accounting systems instruction is a distinct subject-matter area, as are accounting theory, internal accounting, taxes and auditing. A doctoral degree presumes at least a sound foundation knowledge in each of the broad accounting areas, with a high degree of expertise in the candidate's specialist area. The committee also recommended that substantial attention should be given both by individual schools and by the American Accounting Association, to the need for a re-orientation of accounting toward an analytical approach rather than one which is mainly descriptive.