Abstract The article presents a reply to a comment on the use of historical records in accounting education. In no way, the author expects students in elementary courses to dissect the technological intricacies of medieval accounts. That level of approach is, of course, reserved for the graduate courses in accounting history where one customarily deals with these technical matters. It has been the author's experience that bright undergraduates very quickly gain an appreciation for the antiquity of some of the basic accounting ideas, and also derive intellectual excitement from the notion that accounting reports often give clues to some of the characteristics of the society or social unit which produced them. This historical approach, even at the beginning of accounting studies, often provides a lingering perspective which helps students "put it all together." It would be equally interesting for students to have available accounting reports drawn from the American Colonial and post-revolutionary periods.
Philip M. Piaker (Mon,) studied this question.
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