ACCOUNTANCY STUDENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 221, 18 September 1934, Page 7

ACCOUNTANCY STUDENTS

PRESIDENT’S ADVICE TRAINING THE BRAIN An important function of the New Zealand Society of Accountants is in the help given to students’ societies in various districts. “Naturally students are anxious to complete their professional course as quickly as possible,” states the society’s president (Mr. H. Valentine), “but I need hardly say that the com pletion of the professional course is only the commencement of what is a life work, the study and practical application of the principles of economics, finance and business organisation and the broad principles of law as applied to business transactions. The examination course has failed in its principal objective if on its completion the student has merely equipped himself to perform the routine duties of a bookkeeper. “Bookkeeping is only a means to an j end and not an end in itself. It is the r capacity to study and interpret the results shown by the art of bookkeeping in the light of the wider knowledge of the economic principles forming the foundation of sound accountancy which make the accountant so valuable in modern business. Statistics and costing are an indispensable adjunct to interpretive accounting. A sound knowledge of the science of mathematics is essential to the statistician, and the accountant must thus become the connecting link beween the academic mathematician and economist and the world of business, or between theory and practice. “All this may seem to set an impossibly high standard for the student who is struggling to master the mysteries of trial balances or to memorise the acts of bankruptcy or the machinery provisions of the Companies Act. But the drudgery of these studies will help to create the capacity to proceed step by step to higher flights and will train the brain so as to make the task easier. Let me utter a warning against the mere cramming of the subjects. The student should endeavour to find and understand the underlying principles in all he studies; otherwise his knowledge will be of only limited value and his work seeond-rat.fi.’ ’