ready to take up the work, the technical side of the profession of accountancy, and teach that side of the subject to our students. Owing to the liberality of our last legislature we have money enough to give a good, reasonable living to any one who is enthusiastic over this work, but in some way or other the love of your profession is so strong that when once you are in it you refuse to come into the educational side of the work with the information you could give. We do not blame you. We realize that you are working with more difficult problems than you would have in working with students, but nevertheless the call is before. you and someone ought to answer it. The university wants you to furnish someone to help out on this side.

Professor Johnson delighted us in speaking of the science of accountancy, or the science of economics. The business world is entirely devoted outside of the profession to what we call in academic circles, the science of wealth. Professor Gray has advised us that he has been led into various difficulties owing to the lack of professional training in accountancy in attacking certain problems that come before a person who is interested in economic developments. Of course no man who is not trained in economics can apply those principles to the solution of great problems coming up in modern corporations. If you think of it for a moment, accounting occupies the same field in the general sphere of economics that qualitative chemistry occupies in the general field of chemistry. And the chemist who is trained only as a qualitative chemist, so he can find out of any particular substance the ingredients it contains, is not trained on the quantitative side to exactly measure the ingredients. In the past the science of economics has been, of course, a theoretical study to a certain extent, and although somewhat divorced from the business world, the trained economist is also to a certain extent a trained accountant. Like the chemist we think he is not qualified until he has solved the problem of quantitative as well as qualitative analysis.

We have made the mistake for years that we thought we could solve all these problems with one side of education, simply the quantitative side. When we run up against a practical problem we apply the principle of accountancy. To give you an illustration: I have been much interested in the last three months, as probably all of you have, in this wave of agitation passing over

the country in reference to railroad affairs. Of course it is a complicated question of what is a just and reasonable rate. It involves the most intricate principles of accountancy that call for the greatest professional experience, and yet our judges who are called upon to decide whether or not the legislature or the railroads are right in their attitude of what is considered a reasonable rate, and to determine that on general principles, are without any exact knowledge of whether those principles can be carried. out in the final analysis. I have often been led to believe that if our judges knew a little less law and a little more in regard to the science of accountancy, they would come much nearer to what is just and reasonable in our economic world and we would get on very much more smoothly than we have in the past.

Now, for these particular reasons it has seemed to me that we must lay these two things side by side. Our young men must be first thoroughly grounded in the general principles of economics as applied in the business world, and for that reason they must have a knowledge of economic history. It seems to me the study of economic history gives perhaps the greatest inspiration we can get, because it causes us to change our views and become a little less conservative. So I think outside of a general education and a thorough knowledge of the principles of economics, a general knowledge of what has been done in the past in the business world, is and must be the foundation upon which to build our hope for the more technical side of accountancy in its broadest sense, beginning with arithmetic, if necessary, and ending with the most complicated problem that we are able to solve. Then turn the boys over to you, as the young lawyer is turned over after a course in the law school.

This is our idea of what we would like to do, but we cannot do it unless we can find some one to help us. The cry from Macedonia is still present. We are looking to you for men who will offer themselves a sacrifice to the cause of learning for the benefit of the future development of professional accountancy.

Higher Education for Public Accountants.

BY SEYMOUR WALTON, B. A., C. P. A.

The demand of the age is for educated men. The movement in favor of a scientific training for the world's workers has

been an accelerating one, gathering strength from year to year in a constantly increasing momentum, until now it is the dominant feature of modern life. Starting from the time when the clerical profession obtained its designation from the exclusive possession of what was then called education, it spread to the domains of law, medicine and teaching, which then forced the clerics to admit them into the classification of the learned professions. Within the memory of men now living, applied science has demanded and obtained recognition as a vital necessity in the development of modern business methods, and the demand arose for educated chemists, electricians and specialists of all kinds. Up to this time education had been considered of value principally as a mental discipline, so that a smattering of mathematics, "a little Latin and less Greek" were supposed to fit a man for anything in life except the learned professions, and to be the best foundation for them. But when the business man demanded scientific assistance in his mine, his factory or his railroad, the old-fashioned literary college was found inadequate to supply it, and the great universities took up the task and most nobly solved the problem. They have rapidly added one course after another to the curriculum, until the field of technical instruction is well nigh covered.

In this way the courses of a few weeks' duration devoted by the college to scientific subjects have been developed by the university into four-year courses in each grand division of science, with practical instruction in the application of scientific principles to the future work of the students. This movement was at first confined to the exact sciences, but has been recently extended by some institutions to cover economic science, and courses have been established in all the subjects embraced in the generic name of economics.

The last development of the new application of scientific ideas has been the attempt to train the scientific business man by giving instruction in the principles which underlie all commercial transactions. Courses in commerce and finance have been established in many universities and are contemplated by others. These include courses in banking, insurance, transportation and many other subdivisions of business activity, until it may be said that every occupation can now be entered through the door of a university education, except one.

That exception is the one that most interests the public accountant, for it means that there is no way provided for the scientific training of persons desiring to obtain the C. P. A. degree, except in the cities of New York and Philadelphia and locally at a few universities situated in small towns where they do not reach any students except those who can afford to give their entire time and can reside at the university.

In most of the large cities, notably in Chicago, there is a constantly increasing demand for instruction which will qualify a student for passing the C. P. A. examinations, not only from those who wish to adopt accountancy as a profession, but also from those who realize that such a course of instruction will add to their value as office men in commercial establishments. To such men the only avenues of learning open are the correspondence schools in the East, excellent as far as they go, but not as satisfactory as direct personal instruction. It is true that some of the business colleges attempted to supply the need, but they never advanced beyond the elementary stages, and many of them have abandoned the attempt altogether.

In Chicago, at least, the situation is such that there is no doubt that a proper school of commerce and finance, including a course in accounting, would be a complete success, and the Illinois Society of Certified Public Accountants has appointed a committee which will doubtless evolve a plan for establishing it. The great difficulty is not to find the students or the money, but the man to carry out the plan to the best advantage. If any one at all approaching the ideal can be found, there is no doubt that the school will be established this winter.

The importance of this matter to our profession can hardly be overestimated. All accountants know how difficult it is to obtain the proper help in the way of trained assistants. The situation reminds us of what was said by an officer of one of our large corporations, who was asked whether all the positions in his department were filled. "There are men in all the positions, but they don't fill them-they rattle around in them." We are tired of employing the men who think themselves competent because they can add up a column rapidly and sometimes correctly, but who know so little scientific accounting that they cannot be left alone very long, but must be constantly supervised. The British accountants are more fortunately situated

than we are, since they can avail themselves of articled clerks or apprentices, whom they can train in the best way possible. The apprenticeship system has never taken root in this country and is only partially replaced by the employment of young men who expect to adopt the profession of accountancy, but who are very apt to accept positions with commercial houses as soon as they have begun to be useful to the accountant with whom they have received their training, necessitating the breaking in of a new man. Even if the process were always successful, it is a slow way of developing competent men, and therefore the accountants will welcome any movement that will furnish the proper material quickly and in sufficient quantities.

Even those who take a course in accountancy and yet remain in commercial positions would be helps to the profession, since they would have better ideas of the scope of accountancy and would be more willing to avail themselves of the accountant's services than would those who have very little idea of such things and consider an accountant as not much more than a sublimated bookkeeper.

It would probably be best at first to start with an evening. school of accountancy and commercial law that would demonstrate by its financial success that the demand for a higher education is a real one. From this the larger institution could be developed as rapidly as was found practicable, until all branches of a complete business education on the highest plane would be provided for. There is every reason to believe that such a school would receive the support of the commercial associations and the general business public. One of the results of the contact of the business man with the public accountant has been to educate him to understand that something more should be expected of his bookkeeping staff than the mere trial balance with its array of meaningless figures. Although this education has not progressed very far as yet, it has made sufficient advance to necessitate a higher standard in the accounting and cost. departments of all businesses, and it is certain that the graduates of this school could obtain much better positions in commercial houses than if they did not possess the advantage of the higher education.

It must not be supposed that the contemplated school would appeal only to boys or very young men. Even in the elementary