Abstract This article focuses on the responsibilities of the professional accounting firms in continuing the learning the training of college graduates. Aside from responsibilities to help provide for the further growth of the profession, it may also be said that it is to firms' own self-interests to develop fully their staff members as quickly as possible. For many years now there has been a somewhat severe shortage of top senior accountants in this country. While this has been due in part to the disruption caused by wars and near-wars and in part to the unusual opportunities in private industry for accountants, it also probably has been due to the failure of the profession to appreciate fully that the situation will be a continuing one unless it is vigorously attacked. Most interns go into the profession upon graduation, many of them with the firms with whom they interned, but there are a few who find out that public accounting is not for them. When the college graduates begin their employment, more formal training is given them than is possible during their internship.
Hugh Macaulay (Sat,) studied this question.