Professional Accountants Today.

Abstract There has been a complete transfiguration of the accountant of yesterday into the accountant of today, as of October 1943. No longer are there day-books, bound ledgers, stereotyped forms and reports and procedures. In their stead there has been substituted a streamlined system of well-defined, well-coordinated principles and practices as the foundation of the carefully studied technique used in our profession today. The accountant must be capable, honest, and honorable, for his entire stock in trade consists of his professional ability and his reputation for successful and honorable service in the past. His life is molded and designed to prepare him for occupational proficiency. Before he can attain this proficiency, he must devour a well-balanced and a well integrated program which emphasizes applied and practical knowledge in business training, together with the traditional academic background and respectability. As an accountant progresses in his profession, from an inexperienced to an experienced accountant, he becomes more fully aware of the vastness of the field of accountancy and the futility of hoping to understand it in detail. Yet, an accountant by his inborn nature is driven to know his place in the system of existing things, reasoning about and understanding, at least in general, the controlling procedures and practices that engender order in the apparent chaos of his profession.