Continuing education: A Broad view

              Continuing Education: A Broad View
BY JOHN W. QUEENAN Partner, Executive Office
Presented at the Annual Dinner meeting of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants — May 1959
IT is always a stimulating experience for me to meet and con­gratulate
new certified public accountants, new members of our profession. Among the common bonds that unite us all, new CPAs and old, is the memory of the exhilaration each of us experienced when he first received word of his success. That memory, sharp and clear as it is for each of our new group, will not blur, I can assure you, as the years pass by. Each of the rest of us can without too much difficulty relive the scene—a high point in the life of each of us.
Occasionally I have heard the thought expressed that after an accountant passes the CPA examination he can, in effect, coast down­hill.
He has reached his goal, his education is complete. This is just not so — no more, as you recognize now, than it was when he obtained his high school diploma or his college degree. Each of these attain­ments,
it is true, marked the end of a phase, but they also marked a beginning. A long time ago, before I had taken the examination my­self,
a good friend of mine received his CPA certificate. He had it framed, and was in the process of hanging it on the wall of our staff room one day when I walked in.
"That must give you a real feeling of accomplishment," I remarked.
"Well," he said, in a serious voice but with a twinkle in his eye, "at least no one can now say that I can't add!"
Of course the certificate means more than that, but I have always remembered that incident because of its healthy message: the CPA certificate, without a doubt, denotes ability but even more clearly it marks a point from which the winner must move on.
DEVELOPMENT—THE INDIVIDUAL'S RESPONSIBILITY
Training and development of people today is a prominent theme in the thinking of those charged with administrative responsibility— those who manage the activities of others whether in business or in any other type of organization. Take baseball, for instance—take your own Phillies. Spring training has recently ended, and the sea-
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