EDWARD P. MOXEY, JR.
By Adolph Matz The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Emeritus)
Edward P. Moxey, Jr., was the first Chairman of the Accounting Department of the Wharton School. He was one of the thirty-seven accountants who met in Buffalo, New York, in October, 1919 to organize the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA), now known as the National Association of Accountants (NAA). For the first three years of its existence he served on the National Board of Directors. He was also the prime influence in the founding of the Philadelphia Chapter of the NACA in 1920 and served as its president from 1928-1930. During the years 1929-1931 he served as chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Other memberships included the American Society of Certified Public Accountants as well as the National Panel of Arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association. As an enthusiastic golfer Dr. Moxey was a life-long member of the Cedarbrook Country Club. He was a Presbyterian and frequently taught the Men’s Bible Class at the Mount Airy Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.
Professor Moxey was born in Philadelphia on October 2, 1881, interestingly enough in the same year in which Joseph H. Wharton, Philadelphia businessman and ironmaker, made his first gift to the University of Pennsylvania, laying the foundation for the Accounting Department of the Wharton School. Joseph H. Wharton’s agreement with the University contained the statement that “one Professor or Instructor of Accounting or Bookkeeping, to teach the simplest and most practical forms of bookkeeping for housekeepers, for private individuals, for commercial and banking firms, for manufacturing establishments, and for banks; also the modes of keeping accounts by executors, trustees, and assignees, by the officials of towns and cities, as well as by the several departments of a State or National Government; also the routine of business between a bank and a customer.” Mr. Wharton’s concern for good accounting would be stressed in every subsequent gift made to the University. At one time he emphasized “the necessity of system and accuracy in ac-counts, of thoroughness in whatever is undertaken, and of strict fidelity in trusts.” And he demanded that “the science of accounting and the art of bookkeeping are to be more regularly and thoroughly than heretofore taught at the School.
Although Accounting was one of the first subjects taught in the newly organized Wharton School, almost twenty years passed before a separate Accounting Department and faculty was created with Dr. Edward P. Moxey, Jr. as its first chairman. He served in that capacity until 1937, continuing his teaching at Wharton until his untimely death in 1943.
Dr. Moxey was graduated from Germantown Friends School in 1900 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1904 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics. During Moxey’s undergraduate days three accounting courses were listed in the College catalogue under the “Business Law and Practice” group. In 1900 a young Instructor in Business Practice by the name of Edward S. Mead, (the father of Dr. Margaret Mead, world-famous anthropologist) took over the Accounting work and taught two courses: “Bookkeeping and Office Methods” and “Corporation Accounting”; both couses appeared as “Economics 201,” and “Economics 206,” in the catalogue. In 1903, Thomas Warner Mitchell, an Assistant in Economics, was added to the instructional staff of the Wharton School for the express purpose of teaching courses in “Elementary Accounting” and “Advanced Corporation Accounting.” Dr. Mitchell, a 1900 graduate of the University of Washington, received his doctor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1905. In his second year of teaching (1904) Dr. Mitchell was given the title of Instructor of Accounting and a new teacher was added as his assistant, Edward P. Moxey, Jr. Therewith began his teaching career of 39 years.
During the 1904-1905 school year the Wharton School was separated from the College under the Directorship of James T. Young, whose textbooks on political science and government were widely used in the early years of this century. However, it was not until 1912 that the Wharton School gained complete autonomy as a separate undergraduate school of the University with its own dean and facuIty.
In the same 1904-1905 session the Evening School of Accounts and Finance was organized with Accounting as one of its first subjects to be offered. In those years as well as in all other years, practitioners in the field of accounting were added as Special Lecturers, among them Robert H. Montgomery of Lybrand, Ross Bros., and Montgomery, Certified Public Accountants.
In the University Year 1905-1906 three regular Accounting courses were offered in the Wharton School: “Elementary Accounting,” “Accounting Systems,” and “C.P.A. Problems.” All three courses were taught by Edward P. Moxey, Jr., assisted by Walter K. Hardt, who had been graduated from the Wharton School the previous year. After Ed Moxey began his teaching duties, he continued his education as a graduate student, earning a master’s and, in 1909, the Doctor of Philosophy degree. In addition to his teaching and studies, Dr. Moxey completed the preparation for the practice of public accounting by passing the C.P.A. examination and receiving the C.P.A. certificate from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1907. Dr. Moxey was duly elected to Beta Gamma Sigma, the honorary scholastic fraternity for collegiate schools of business.
Dr. Moxey was also associated with his father, Edward P. Moxey, Sr. as partner in the practice of public accounting. At age 15, his father, unable to continue his education at that time, started to work as an office boy for the Philadelphia banking house of Glendenning, Davis & Co. During this employment he, together with other young men, including his boyhood friend, Edward T. Stotesbury, took courses of study under the personal instruction of Thomas M. Peirce who in the 1870’s had established a business school for evening in-struction in commercial subjects. This school, still in existence today, has been teaching, as then, many prominent Philadelphians the rudiments of business and accounting. Moxey, Sr., as a banker, broker, businessman and later a Certified Public Accountant possessed a natural and almost uncanny aptitude.for figures and their relationship one to the other. As an example, the expression “Refer it to Moxey” became a common by-word among his fellow bankers and brokers whenever any matter relating to a financial statement required a sound and quick decision.
This aptitude for figures and love for the English language was also a main characteristic of his son, Edward, Jr. His experiences gained by teaching the “Accounting Systems” course for many years culminated in 1911 in the publication of Accounting Systems, A Description of Systems Appropriate To Different Kinds of Business published in Modern Business Volume X, 468 pages, by the Alexander Hamilton Institute, New York City. The Editor’s Preface contains the statement that “the main purpose of this volume is to enable the reader, by numerous concrete illustrations, to get a grasp of the underlying principles of
system-building and so to be able to appraise justly any system in operation, to suggest needed improvements, or to create a new system if the old is found inadequate.”
The text consists of 24 chapters with quiz questions for each chapter. The topics discussed should be of considerable interest in the light of the phases treated in today’s accounting courses: Installation of Accounting Systems; Business and Accounting System for a Building and Loan Association (3 chapters); The Insurance Business, Life Insurance and Accounting System of a Life Insurance Company, Fire Insurance Accounting (4 chapters); Bank Accounting (2 chapters); Brewery Accounting (1 chapter); The Department Store and Department Store Accounting (2 chapters); Gas Accounting (2 chapters); Railroad Accounting (3 chapters); Street Railway Accounting (1 chapter); Municipal Accounting (1 chapter); Executor’s Work, Estate Bookkeeping System, Entries under the System, Final Accounting (4 chapters). The publication of the accounting systems text and Dr. Moxey’s teaching of these subjects were strictly in harmony with Mr. Wharton’s stipulations in the original deed. The course [was taught] after World War II; however, the new trends in teaching accounting and the move away from the practical approach led in the early 1950’s to the discontinuation of the course. The Accounting Systems course was also taught in the Evening School, since it was a necessary prerequisite to the passing of the State’s C.P.A. examination.
A group of Philadelphia accountants, including J. E. Sterrett, whose profile was published in the Spring 1975 issue of The Accounting Historian met in 1897 and discussed the question of trying to secure enactment of a law to provide a standard of qualification for persons entering the profession. To lend prestige to this request the Pennsylvania Association of Public Accountants was founded which counted among its charter members these prominent accountants: John Heins, J. E. Sterrett, William M. Lybrand, Robert H. Montgomery, Adam A. Ross, T. Edward Ross; in 1903, Edward P. Moxey, Sr.; in 1905, Walter A. Staub; and in 1907, Edward P. Moxey, Jr. The name of the Association was changed on October 15, 1900, to the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Ed Moxey, Jr. served as Chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Institute from 1929-1931.
The first draft of the proposed bill for the certification of public accountants failed to pass. Upon investigation it was learned that a policy of education would have to be adopted to overcome prejudice and convince legislators of the equity and desirability of setting standards for accountants serving in a public capacity. When the bill was finally passed in 1899, the new Association set about to remedy the lack of accounting education and formal instruction. As stated in Sterrett’s profile, he, as Chairman of the Committee on Education, organized the Society’s Evening School of Accounts in 1902. Two years later the Wharton School assumed the responsibility for the educational program and ever since, Wharton Evening School has formed the theoretical training ground of many well-known Philadelphia C.P.A.’s.
In 1913 Dr. Moxey wrote and published Principles of Factory Cost Keeping, The Ronald Press Company, New York, 91 pages. In the Preface to this cost text he stated that in his belief a cost text is needed because “in many minds the idea exists that the principles of cost accounting are more or less mysterious and vague, and that the subject is one for the expert only to be understood after years of study and experience. This idea is due largely to the lack of a clear and simple presentation of the principles upon which cost accounting rests.” He further points out that “the use of diagrams in illustrating the principles of cost accounting is not new. They were used quite successfully in the early eighties by Garcke and Fells in their book Factory Accounts, Their Principles and Practice.
This cost principles text consists of five chapters: Introductory; Accounting for Stores; Accounting for Labor; Accounting for Indirect Expenses; and a Summary. The last paragraph of the Summary points out quite significantly that the “principles of factory accounting are always the same, though their application may vary widely. This must be kept in mind by the accountant and the manufacturer, as the ability to adapt the principles of cost accounting to the requirements of a plant is an important factor in securing its economic handling and in securing therefrom the best results.”
Dr. Moxey was also the author of numerous articles which were published in leading accounting journals and, on a number of occa-sions, was the principal speaker at meetings of various accounting organizations.
This profile is not complete without mentioning Dr. Moxey’s son, Edward P. Moxey, Ill, a 1930 Wharton graduate, who has followed his father and grandfather as a third generation C.P.A. In addition to his long association with the Philco Corporation and its successor, the Philco-Ford Corporation, he has taught accounting courses at Temple University for the past thirty years. He was one of the founders of the North Penn Chapter of the NAA of which he is a past president. He is also a member of AICPA and PICPA.
In 1981 when the Wharton School will celebrate its 100th anniversary, the Accounting Department will have the opportunity of proclaiming not only its own importance in the life of the School but also that of Edward P. Moxey, Jr. His unusual interest and ability in the accounting field, his successful professional life and his much-admired enthusiasm and wit in the classroom endeared him to practitioners, students and teaching associates. As Professor and Chairman of the Accounting Department he contributed substantially to the high standard of accounting education and of the accounting profession in this country.
(Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 12, 10, 1976)
