Professional consciousness;

              HASKINS & S E L LS NEW YORK CHICAGO KANSAS CITY
PHILADELPHIA CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS SEATTLE
PORTLAND
DETROIT DENVER
CSALEINVTEL LAONUDIS ATLANTA
BOSTON
BALTIMORE
PITTSBURGH
LOS ANGELES
SAN FRANCISCO BULLETIN DALLAS
SALT LAKE CITY
TULSA
WATERTOWN
CBUINFCFfANLNOA TI PLOANRDISO N
NEW ORLEANS EXECUTIVE OFFICES
HASKINS & SELLS BUILDING
37 WEST 38TH ST.. NEW YORK
HAVANA
SHANGHAI
VOL. IV NEW YORK, MARCH 15, 1921 No. 3
Professional Consciousness
A PUBLIC accountant may be honest;
he may be industrious, personally
agreeable, and technically capable, but
if he fails to sense that moral responsibility
which a professional accountant should
possess, he fails to merit the title of pro­fessional
accountant.
Too many accountants regard the work
in which they are engaged as a business.
To sell their services, or the services of men
whom they engage as assistants, seems to
be their main thought; excepting perhaps
the expectation of receiving pay for the
services.
The saying that "a laborer is worthy
of his hire" is perforce as true of account­ancy
as any other line of endeavor. That
accountancy should have its business side
as well as its technical side is essential
to the successful conduct of any practice.
But the business aspect should never be
permitted to take precedence over every­thing
else. It should be kept in the back­ground
and made subservient to the all-important
purpose of professional practice;
namely, to satisfy the client.
The legal responsibility of the public
accountant has scarcely been judicially
determined in this country. Generally
speaking, if he has acquired competency
through education and experience, uses
due diligence and is not guilty of negli­gence,
he is absolved from legal liability
and may not be held for losses sustained
by clients. But legal liability is hard, cold,
and exacting, and has none of the finer
feelings which attach to moral obligation.
The bank or trust company which sus­tains
a loss because an employe by means
of some ingenious trick has foiled a firm
of capable and diligent public accountants
and robbed the institution of securities
may have no recourse as against the ac­countants,
but it is none the less dissatisfied
with their services. Some accountants
on the other hand feel no less keenly the
sense of moral obligation even though
the courts may not be disposed to hold
them legally responsible. In a case similar
to that mentioned, which happened some
years ago, the accountants who "paid
until it hurt" did so entirely because of
a sense of moral obligation.
"Take nothing for granted" is a good
rule for accountants to follow and it
means exactly what it says, subject of
course to the qualification that its appli­cation
implies the exercise of discrimination
which determines what is, and is not, of
substantial importance. Taking things for
granted may not result in a pecuniary loss
to the firm, but it may bring loss of pro­fessional
reputation, prestige and standing
which are after all more to be treasured
than riches.
Technical ability and performance are