Reviewed by G. A. Swanson Tennessee Tech University
This volume contains two parts — the first chapter and the rest of the book. The first chapter is a 115-page treatise on the evolution of English general education from 597 to the mid-eighteenth century. The remaining chapters concern nine eighteenth-century essays. Although the essays are not likely to change our perceptions about the development of accounting education in that century, they may provide insights into how liberally general educators perceived bookkeeping as a subject.
The title of the book is misleading. The connection between the education discussed and the mercantile counting houses is never made in either the treatise or the essays. It is like titling a book on modern business education “Education for the Banking Industry” because banks in some sense underlie modern busi¬ness. Readers looking for information on mercantile counting houses will be disappointed in the book’s contents.
Notwithstanding its title, the book is a useful addition to the study of both business and accounting education. Some educators assert that the present emphasis on liberal education for business is a modern phenomenon, but the nine essays refute this assertion. For example, Thomas Watts’ essay “On the Proper Method for Forming the Man of Business,” published in 1716, advocates the combination of accounting and liberal education advocated by many business actors today [pp. 123-138]. Watts suggests the following five areas of learning, in order of importance: (1) correspondence, (2) computation, (3) book¬keeping, (4) mathematics, and (5) “Propriety of Expression.” He describes a package of knowledge and skills from communica¬tions and computing to analytic and interpersonal skills that includes accounting.
The author-editor’s own treatise in the first chapter is tedious if a reader is searching for accounting education mile¬stones. It is quite revealing, however, of the apparent general education value English educators placed on bookkeeping. Long before it was associated with trade schools, bookkeeping was part of the emerging general education.
The nine essays are mostly photographic representations of original imprints. Well over 100 other works are cited by the author.
The volume should interest all accounting and business historians, particularly those interested in education. It should be considered for assigned reading in courses in the history of education generally and in the history of business and account-ing education specifically.
