Reviewed by Barrie O’Keeffe Riverina College of Advanced Education, Australia
Museum curators must find it easier to attract and retain our attention than writers of accounting history. They will please most of us by displaying the remains of some prehistoric animal (preferably from the other side of the world) that has had the good fortune to be preserved in ice or stone for millions of years. Few of us stop to think that the focus of our attention was, in its time, neither un-usual nor unique. It just happened to be on the spot when a sudden change in conditions preserved its mortal remains for all time.
Would that the accounting historian were so lucky. In addition to a description of the subject, he needs to help us with an understanding of the events that he is describing.
Goldberg does just that. In The Florescent Decade, he paints a picture of accounting education in Australia in the years 1945 to 1955. He draws on many sources of original evidence to show the importance of individuals, professional associations, and tertiary institutions in this period
The development of accounting education in the Australian uni-versities and technical colleges is traced from its beginnings. The importance of the technical colleges is mentioned, but the subjects most closely examined by Goldberg are the influence of the Com-monwealth Institute of Accountants (which merged with the Federal Institute of Accountants and the Association of Accountants in Australia to form the Australian Society of Accountants in 1952); the University of Melbourne; and the brothers A. A. and G. E. Fitzgerald.
In the period between the wars there was slow but discernible progress in moving accountancy studies to a level where they would be not only a recognised entree to the profession, but also acceptable as a discipline at university level. Yet until 1945 there were no full-time staff teaching accountancy in Australian universi-ties or technical colleges. The first full-time appointments included Goldberg in 1945, Jean Kerr and Stewart in 1946 (University of Mel-bourne); Braddock (South Australian School of Mines) and Keown (Melbourne Technical College) in 1946; Chambers (University of Sydney) and Mathews (University of Adelaide) in 1952; Smyth (University of New South Wales) and Nichols (University of Tasmania) in 1955; and Gynther (University of Queensland) in 1959.
These appointments were associated with a substantial increase in enrolments in the accountancy subjects offered in commerce courses. For example, in 1945 there were 139 students enrolled in Accountancy 1 at the University of Melbourne. By 1947 their number had increased to 647.
Many of the students were ex-servicemen who were assisted by the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme to take up tertiary studies. The scheme made available educational courses to those who had postponed their studies because of the war. More importantly, it provided an opportunity to many who in pre-war conditions would have been unable even to contemplate university or other post-secondary study.
The demand for education could be converted to a need for ac-countancy education because of the groundwork that had been done in the universities (especially Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Tasmania) and technical colleges (particularly Melbourne Technical College and the South Australian School of Mines) before 1939.
As well as this foundation in the tertiary institutions there was the expectation by the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants that it would vacate the examination field when the universities and colleges were able to demonstrate that graduates from their courses could meet the educational requirements for professional membership. Goldberg documents no less than six references to this longstanding attitude of the Commonwealth Institute. Its descendant, the Australian Society of Accountants, ultimately began to phase out its own examination system in 1967.
Goldberg draws attention to three threads that ran through the development of accounting education in Australia. There was the role played by the University of Melbourne with its long-established commerce course and its pioneering role in the teaching of ac-countancy in Australian universities. Second was the influence of the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants, numerically the largest of the professional accounting bodies (with its headquarters in Mel-bourne), which clearly recognised that the profession would be best served if the teaching and examining of potential members was left to the universities and colleges. The third, and in many ways the most significant influence was that of A. A. and G. E. Fitzgerald. Both were deeply involved with the activities of the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants and the teaching of accounting at the University of Melbourne.
Goldberg makes it clear that the pattern of Australian accounting education would have been very much different, and its progress not nearly so rapid nor successful, but for the influence of the Fitz-geralds and these two organisations into which much of their professional endeavour was channelled. The importance of the Fitz-geralds has been documented elsewhere.1 It would be hard to overstate their importance to the development of accounting and accounting education in Australia.
Professor Emeritus Goldberg has given us a book that will interest all accounting educators. It is prescribed reading for any accounting educator visiting Australia. Those whose formative years were spent in Australia will also find much in it that will provide them with a better understanding of the current Australian accounting education scene.
1For example, Chambers, R. J., Mathews, R. L, Goldberg, L., eds., Accounting Frontier, Melbourne, Cheshire, 1965; and Syme, B. T., ‘The Fitzgerald Editorials’, Accounting History Newsletter, No. 6, Winter 1983, 12-24.
