Interest in accounting;

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VOL. X I NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1928 No. 12
Interest In Accounting
SOCIAL, civic, philanthropic, and similar
agencies depend for their continued
existence on those who furnish the funds.
As their well-wishers are generous, so the
agencies thrive and increase their useful­ness.
When their patrons withdraw their
support, or assume an attitude of indiffer­ence,
the agencies degenerate into spiritless
bodies, functioning in a lifeless manner.
Accounting, as a medium through which
the financial facts of business are expressed,
is not unlike a social agency. When those
who have occasion to use it as a medium of
expression, endow it with their intelligent
thought, it responds in a way that charac­terizes
it as a most useful institution.
Used in an indifferent or haphazard manner
the results sometimes are sad to behold.
Accounting is the tool of the accountant.
Its purpose is to present financial data
accurately and in easily understood terms.
Oftener than not, the data relates to finan­cial
condition and results of operations.
The accountant should know more about
accounting than any one else. He should
know its philosophy, application, possi­bilities,
and limitations. The accountant
has more opportunity than any one else to
observe the utilization of accounting under
varying conditions and peculiar situations;
to learn of its capacity and to increase its
usefulness.
Business men, bankers, credit men, en­gineers,
appraisers, lawyers, statisticians,
and investors should not be excluded from
those who are permitted to understand
financial statements. But just as the busi­ness
man is presumed to know more about
business, the banker more about banking,
the credit man more about credit, so the
accountant may be presumed to know more
about accounting than those who make
use of the statements which he prepares.
The presumption in favor of the account­ant
should be justified. Theoretically, it
maybe true that the accountant is in a
position to speak with knowledge of his
subject, and to command the respect of
those who utilize the product of his efforts.
Practically, there is strong evidence to
indicate that practice is following lines
which show more influence on accounting
of those to whom it is a collateral subject
than of those whose main subject it is.
The influence of the statutes is a case in
point. No-par stock laws in some states
permit flagrant violations of economic laws
and accounting principles. Yet, that does
not justify the accountant in ignoring his
accounting principles and not drawing his
statements so as to show that such viola­tions
have the sanction of local statutes.
Similar illustrations might be continued
at length. Their purpose would be only
to emphasize the fact that the accountant
must look after his own subject, unless he
wishes to have it developed as a stepchild
of others.