PIONEERS IN ACCOUNTING.

In this article, the emphasis will be on the pioneers of the recent past and of the future rather than on the great names of previous centuries whose contributions to accounting methods and thought have been so well covered in English. The article also points to three ways-not new ways, but ways not yet fully accepted-in which the business world can be helped to see more clearly its position and its responsibilities. First, business executives and the public should be disabused of the idea that the money values in a balance sheet are a measure of productive capacity. Second, the article suggests that we must search for and devise within our own field ways of convincing the business world that the money profit figure is not in itself a measure of successful operation. We have seen recently a great development resulting from the combined efforts of engineers and accountants in the field of cost accounting. It is suggested that as careful thought applied to the field of human engineering would bring as great a development, and charged that this is a field in which we may not wait for the demand to arise before we try to give the service.