Hugh P. Hughes
GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

SOME CONTRIBUTIONS OF AND SOME CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING THOMAS JONES AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN FOSTER

Abstract: Thomas Jones and Benjamin Franklin Foster were two early American accounting textbook authors and teachers. Their careers, spanning the middle of the nineteenth century, occurred during a time of relatively little professional activity and interchange—causing their achievements to appear even more noteworthy. While Jones did not originate the proprietary theory, he was an early advocate of financial statements and not ledger balances as the culmination of bookkeeping. While Foster appears to have made little original contribution, the wide use of his texts appears to have encouraged greater reliance on a theoretical understanding of bookkeeping.

This study describes some accounting contributions of and some controversies surrounding two early American authors and teachers —Thomas Jones (1804-1889) and Benjamin Franklin Foster (1803-1859).1 They were contemporaries and knew each other, Foster having been a teacher in a New York commercial school for about three years of which Jones was director.2 Even by current publication standards, they would be considered prolific authors. Jones’ various accounting books bear copyright dates from 1841 to 1875, and Foster’s accounting works alone (he also wrote texts on penmanship and aspects of commercial law) extend from 1836 to 1893.3 Before analyzing their major accounting writings, the accounting and business environment in which they practiced and taught is described.

The Accounting Environment of the United States, 1830-1880

During the time encompassing the careers of Jones and Foster, little professional activity of development occurred in accounting. Movement toward the formation of an American accounting pro-fession was just beginning, in fact, as Jones’ career was ending. By way of comparison, three years before Jones died in his mid-eighties, James Anyon, then a young employee and later a partner in the firm of Barrow, Wade, Guthrie and Company, described the state of the art at that time in the following words:
I had left on the other side [Great Britain] a profession full of vitality. . . . These conditions existed here only to a very limited extent, . . . public accountancy was in its infancy and . . . little known or understood as a distinct profession. . . . There were very few persons engaged in the profession, no more in fact than could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Though later research indicates Anyon’s estimate of the number of accountants was low, nevertheless only a few persons actually held themselves out to the public as offering accounting or bookkeeping services. These few were concentrated, as was business, in the industrial Northeast. New York City directories from 1850 to 1869 listed three to fourteen accountants. Of them, Jones was listed in the following: 1852-53, 1856-57, 1857-58, 1859-60, 1860-61, 1861-62, and 1862-63.5 According to Littleton, Foster was listed as an instructor in 1834 and as an accountant in 1835-37 and 1858-59.6 In the 1870s, from twelve to forty-one accountants were listed.

While all accountants certainly may not have been listed in these directories, some who were combined accountancy with other occupations such as law and the teaching of bookkeeping. Only after about 1850 is mention found of accountants whose principal occupation was public practice.

The careers of Jones and Foster occurred in an era of no national accounting firms and no professional accounting organizations. Barrow, Wade, Guthrie and Company (no longer in existence) was formed in 1883, but the first “Big Eight” office—that of Price Water-house—was not formed until 1890. The American Association of Public Accountants, predecessor organization of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, was not formed until 1886.

At the time Jones and Foster began to write, the proprietary and partnership forms of business dominated commerce. The corporate form increased in importance throughout the following fifty years,10 but its effects on the practice and profession of accounting were not apparent or particularly noticeable until near the end of that period.

In general, Jones and Foster commenced and followed careers of bookkeeping and accounting in an age not far removed from American Colonial times in which non-corporate businesses prevailed. The few people engaged in a semblance of public accounting work (which initially at least was part-time) did so locally and

Hughes: Contributions of Thomas Jones and Benjamin Franklin Foster 45
probably in effective isolation from each other since no record exists of attempts at professional organization in the United States before the 1880s.

Jones’ Bookkeeping and Accountantship, Elementary and Practical

As might be anticipated, Jones’ text was directed to use in com-mercial academies, as a counting house reference, and even in self-instruction. While not limited exclusively to the following cate-gories, pupils apparently were anticipated to be aspiring merchants’ clerks or merchants themselves. From his twenty years’ examination of a wide variety of merchants’ books, Jones felt he was able to exemplify in this text a system of instruction to prevent the student encountering situations for which he was not prepared.

Jones’ system of instruction was based on an understanding of the proprietary theory in contrast to then prevalent teaching devices of rule-making and account personification. According to Jones, At the root of all the difficulty lies the fact, that book-keeping is not esteemed an essential or necessary part of a general teacher’s qualifications. Were the subject taken up seriously by the more educated portion of the pro-fession, we should no longer find in use a class of text books, which, whenever they fall into the hands of the in-telligent bookkeeper or merchant, stamp the whole process of teaching as a farce.

Specifically attacking rule-making, Jones rather pointedly tells his reader

These rules used to teach bookkeeping, and which are made to stand in the place of the whole theory or science of the subject, will soon be numbered among the last relics of a barbarous age in teaching. How any educated man could use them is a mystery, for they do not grow out of any general purpose to be accomplished, the pupil can see no more of their meaning after applying them a thousand times, than he could at the first, because they have no meaning. The teacher can indeed proceed without studying; for as the student learns nothing, the teacher is not compelled to learn anything.

Having abandoned that approach, Jones starts his analysis with the culmination of the bookkeeping cycle—the balance sheet and income statement.

Bookkeeping implies a systematic arrangement of mercantile transactions, the purpose of which is to afford at all times ready access to the Resources and Liabilities of the party whose operations are recorded. . . .

. . . when accounts have been arranged by Double Entry, they enable us, by additional accounts, to draw up another statement, viz. of the Profit and Losses resulting from the same operations. . . . Hence Double Entry embraces particular accounts. . . developing the present worth from two sources, the one corroborating the other, and constituting the balance of the books.

Jones’ book is not the first in which a proprietary approach is found, but as Chatfield notes it “has been called the first modern accounting text,” since Jones “saw financial statements rather than ledger balances as the final step in the bookkeeping cycle.”

After introducing financial statements, Jones then proceeds to the accounts represented in them, calling the balance sheet accounts “primary accounts,” and the income statement accounts “secondary.” “Double Entry, then, embraces these two distinct kinds of accounts, from each of which we can deduce the present worth; and when both agree the books are said to balance.”16 Jones thus reiterates from the viewpoint of the ledger the same point made in introducing and emphasizing financial statements.

The analysis moves through the bookkeeping cycle in reverse order to subjects progressively more detailed; after the financial statements and accounts in general have been discussed, the author explains the individual accounts, the debits and credits composing their balances, and the journal entries from which the accounts are posted. He brings each newly introduced point into his established scheme of financial statements supported by primary and secondary accounts. For example, when Jones is about to begin his detailed analysis of the ledger and its accounts, he states:

Journalism, then, is the art of assigning its proper place in the ledger to each item in a transaction. To know the proper place is to know the laws, principles, and objects of each account, and a false journal entry can only be proved false by showing its want of conformity to some principle of the Ledger.

When he finally reaches the point of stating rules for debit and credit, he thus is able to introduce them as a convenient technical summary rather than as rules for memorization—”The student will now comprehend and appreciate the following brief rules of debit and credit, as they merely embody in a few words what he already knows.”19 He furthermore is not encumbered with the necessity of dispelling notions about any possible intrinsic meanings of the terms debit and credit; at the beginning of his work he briefly ex-plains and explicitly states that “the terms . . . are used . . . merely to signify the left hand or right hand side of a Ledger account.”

In conclusion, Jones eloquently carried forward the proprietary explanation of accounting and may have been the first to give a dominant position to financial statements in his analysis. What rules he chose to illustrate, unlike those who relied primarily upon rule-making, were logical and technical summaries of points already thoroughly and theoretically developed and were introduced merely as a culmination to his main analysis.

Comments on the Various Works of Benjamin Franklin Foster

Benjamin Franklin Foster was by far a more prolific author than Thomas Jones, publishing accounting works in Great Britain as well as the United States. Foster established his own commercial academy in New York, a prospectus of which is dated 1837. Courses in penmanship, bookkeeping, commercial calculation and letter writing were offered.21 Foster furthermore wrote books in each of these areas, probably for use in his academy, and his A Concise Treatise on Commercial Bookkeeping (1837) is another clear exposition along proprietary lines. Some historians and one of his contemporaries have not commented favorably on this work, however, for he is accused of a lack of originality, to put it gently, or plagiarism, to put it precisely, and the contemporary who accused him was Thomas Jones.

Foster’s Treatise was designed for use in schools and academies, and the author notes that the “aim has not been to promulgate new or fanciful theories; but rather to select information from the best sources, and to embody the excellencies of the most approved writers upon the subject.” His detractors would obviously agree. Foster readily concedes the basis of his study is the work of Morrison, and states that “the author is indebted to the able work of Cronhelm, for many useful hints and much valuable matter.”22 Indeed he was. (Cronhelm’s work dates from 1818.) Littleton, in a discussion of proprietary theories of accounting, states that he would have included references to Foster’s work “had not the author so clearly copied the theory sections from Cronhelm. Chapters I, II, and parts of IV, for example, are Cronhelm’s chapters I, II, Ill, and parts of VIII.”23

In a letter to Thomas Jones dated August 1, 1838 and printed in Jones’ text, Foster acknowledged Jones’ origination, incorporated in one of his own works, of such ideas as beginning the theoretical explanation with the ledger, deducing from accounts two statements of a merchant’s affairs, etc.24 Foster’s list of items borrowed from Jones was a summary of virtually all of Jones’ contributions. Hat-field notes that Foster gave credit to Jones for various points in works of 1840 and 1852 (Hatfield does not specify to which of Foster’s works he refers). Thereafter in succeeding works and editions nothing was said of Jones, and Foster stated that “modern publications show nothing original or systematic about them.”25
Jones apparently was quite bitter about Foster’s “borrowing,” and felt that “the law of copyright has become a mere relic of old fogyism.”26 Exasperated, Jones stated that “Mr. Foster, it is true, never originates, but he is seldom long in finding some one who has thought for him; and in this instance he pounces upon one of his own order.”

Foster, however, may have been more “original” than would be suspected, according to Jones, since Jones noted that “a book has appeared in the name of Nixon, which is neither more nor less than Mr. Foster’s compilations in another shape; . . . but the parts originating in the author of this work are therein credited to Mr. Foster, and he is from time to time referred to as the greatest author living.”

Jones felt Foster and Nixon were really one and the same, and concluded that Foster’s originality, “differently directed, might have led to an honorable fame. But he will say this is no compliment, inasmuch as the genius and originality of many a bold highwayman has elicited the same remark.”

Foster appears to have been undaunted by this criticism; at any rate his books appear to have sold well. The Treatise ran through eight editions in the United States from 1836 to 1853, and his Double Entry Elucidated, printed in Great Britain (with one American edition), lasted fifteen editions, the last appearing in 1893—fifty years after the book made its debut and thirty-four years after his death. In 1909, Hatfield noted that Foster “enjoyed considerable recognition in reprint editions”30 and one of his works, The Origin and Progress of Bookkeeping (1852)31 was reprinted in 1976. This is not, however, one of the works for which he stands accused of plagiarism. It is an account of all books in English he could find on the subject of accounting from 1543 to 1852. In The Origin and Progress of Bookkeeping, Foster presented a list of 159 authors and dates of publication and stated that he possessed 156 of those listed.32 Presumably this library served as the basis of his work. Incidentally, his collection apparently met an unfortunate fate. In the inscription of a copy of Origin and Progress given to the Boston Athenaeum, Foster wrote, “The books in this Cat. were Shipped to Boston ‘pr Deucallion which Ship was lost in April last and nothing saved. Sept. 25 ’52 B. F. Foster.”

Jones and Foster on Balance

While Jones occupies a fairly secure place in the development of accounting thought, Foster’s contributions are not so clear-cut. Notwithstanding, however, Foster’s “lack of originality,” which ap-parently troubled others more than it did him, he was involved with and may even have founded the earliest commercial school in the United States. At any rate, accounting-bookkeeping was taught formally there more than 40 years before it was first introduced successfully in universities in the United States.34 Prior to the commercial school and others like it, bookkeeping hardly could have been taught other than through apprenticeship—being handed down from one clerk to the next—or through tutoring.

The success and impact of Jones’ ideas and Foster’s books are apparent. In 1853, Jones lamented that the leading features of his work appeared “‘in some dozen different treatises on Bookkeeping, all purporting to be original,”35 which unfortunately indicated plagiarism but also indicated the popularity of his work and his approach. Jones furthermore must be noted for the importance he attached to financial statements in the accounting-bookkeeping cycle. While throughout the nineteenth century many texts continued to rely on personification and rule-making, Littleton notes that from the middle of the century “personification of accounts and journalization by rule steadily diminished.”36 Their contributions become particularly noteworthy when consideration is given to the times in which they wrote—times in which no university accounting instruction existed, little or no professional activity was taking place, and the changes wrought in accounting by the corporate form of business were yet to occur.

FOOTNOTES

1Jones and Foster should not be confused with Edward Thomas Jones, the British writer who in 1799 wrote a truly notorious accounting work, nor E. T.’s son,
Theodore, also an accounting writer (1840), nor Theodore’s son Theodore Brooke Jones, who was a good friend and associate of a certain William Foster.
2Hatfield, “Zwei Pfadfinder,” pp. 80-86. Webster, “Benjamin Franklin Foster,” p. 1.
3 The National Union Catalog: Pre-1956 Imprints, s. v. “Benjamin Franklin Foster” and “Thomas Jones, accountant.” Accountants’ Index, 1921, s. v. “Benjamin Franklin Foster” and “Thomas Jones.” Accountants’ Index: Supplement, 1923, s. v. “Thomas Jones.” Harry C. Bentley and Ruth S. Leonard, Bibliography of Works on Accounting by American Authors, vol. 1: 1796-1900, pp. 21, 24, 34, 36, 37, 40, 153. Historical Accounting Literature, s. v. “Benjamin Franklin Foster.”
4Anyon, Recollections of the Early Days of American Accountancy: 1883-1893, pp. 16-17.
5Littleton, Directory of Early American Public Accountants, pp. 12-13, 25.
6Littleton, Directory of Early American Public Accountants, pp. 12-13, 25. Webster, “Public Accountancy in the United States,” pp. 105-106.
7Littleton, Directory of Early American Public Accountants, pp. 12-13, 25. Webster, “Public Accountancy in the United States,” pp. 105-106.
8Littleton, Directory of Early American Public Accountants, pp. 12-13, 25. Webster, “Public Accountancy in the United States,” pp. 105-106.
Edwards, History of Public Accounting in the United States, pp. 50-54.
10Berle and Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, pp. 10-17.
11Jones, Bookkeeping and Accountantship, Elementary and Practical, title page, pp. iii-iv.
12Jones, title page, pp. iii-iv.
13Jones, title page, pp. iii-iv.
14Jones, title page, pp. iii-iv.
15Chatfield, A History of Accounting Thought, p. 222.
16Jones, p. 28.
17Those who wish to compare the quotations arid analysis with that of A. C. Littleton in his Accounting Evolution to 1900 should note that Littleton utilized Jones’ original work The Principles and Practices of Bookkeeping (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1841) which precedes the work utilized herein by twelve years.
18Jones, p. 26.
19Jones, p. 39.
20Jones, p. viii.
21Foster, “Prospectus of the Commercial Academy,” in A Concise Treatise on Commercial Bookkeeping, p. 7. The page number refers to the Prospectus which appears at the back of the book and is separately paginated.
22Foster, A Concise Treatise, p. 5.
23Littleton, Accounting Evolution, p. 181.
24Jones, p. 246.
25Hatfield, “Zwei Pfadfinder,” Homburger translation, p. 7.
26Jones, p. 246.
27Jones, p. 246.
28Jones, p. 246.
29Jones, p. 246.
30Hatfield, “Zwei Pfadfinder,” Homburger translation, pp. 7-8.
31Foster, The Origin and Progress of Bookkeeping.
32Foster, Origin and Progress, p. 23.
33Webster, “Benjamin Franklin Foster,” p. 2.
34Webster, “Public Accountancy in the United States,” p. 111.

Hughes: Contributions of Thomas Jones and Benjamin Franklin; Foster 51
35Jones, p. 246.
36Littleton, Accounting Evolution to 1900, p. 177.
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Accountants’ Index: Supplement, 1923. s. v. “Jones, Thomas.”
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Berle, Jr., Adolf A. and Means, Gardiner C. The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932.
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