DR SCOTT
By James R. Morton The University of Alabama
A profile of DR Scott is especially appropriate in these times of increasing awareness of and concern over the social importance of our traditional institutions. As one of the early interdisciplinary contributors to the accounting literature, Scott is regarded by many present day readers to have been far ahead of his time in this regard. Indeed, his most famous work, The Cultural Significance of Ac¬counts, is as contemporary today as it was at the time of its publication in 1931.
DR Scott was born October 24, 1887 near Montecello, Missouri and died February 8, 1954. The anterior initials, DR, in Scott’s name are not, as one might first believe, his first and middle initials. Rather, the capital letters DR, without periods and without a space between them, were taken from the initials of his father’s name, David Roland Scott, to comprise his entire first name.
Scott attended the University of Missouri from 1907 to 1910 earning the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in journalism. He was a Fellow in Economics at the University of Missouri during 1910-1911, and was Austin Scholar at Harvard University during 1916-1917. It was from Harvard University that Scott received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1930.
Scott spent most of his life in Missouri, and most of his working years at the University of Missouri. He began his teaching career, however, in 1911 as an instructor at the University of Michigan. In 1914, after two years as a reporter for the Detroit Times, he returned to the University of Missouri as an instructor. With the exception of a brief period in 1918 and 1919, while he served as a statistician with the U.S. Army in Tours, France, Scott remained on the University of Missouri faculty until he died. Scott was promoted to assistant Professor of economics in 1917, to associate professor two years later, and to professor of economics the following year, 1920. In 1930, he became chairman of the newly formed department of accounting and statistics and his title was changed to professor of accounting and statistics.
Scott was married on April 28, 1920, to Miss Carrie Lind Pancoast, and had one son, Wallace Pancoast Scott. Professor Scott’s academic and professional affiliations included: the American Ac¬counting Association, of which he was vice-president in 1941; vice-president of the American Association of University Professors; several professional economics organizations; and various local and national honorary and social organizations.
In addition to The Cultural Significance of Accounts, Scott authored another book, Theory of Accounts, both of which were published by Henry Holt and Company. He also authored 26 articles which have been reproduced in Collected Writings of DR Scott, Robert L. Kvam, Editor, in connection with the 50th Anniversary celebration of the School of Business and Public Administration which Scott was so instrumental in forming.
In his classic work, The Cultural Significance of Accounts, Professor Scott describes the objective of his book as follows:
In making an attempt to formulate an orientation for accounts, the writer does not undertake to relate them to a static standard or ideal. His purpose is rather to show their place in a process of social development. What is aimed at . . . is the presentation of a series of snap shots, as it were, upon which the reader is expected to exercise his imagination in constructing the outlines of an organizing process of contemporary cultural evolution. (pp. 3-4)
Having thus set the stage, Scott proceeds to relate the concept of economic market control to a shifting of cultural orientation from a subjective to an objective outlook. It was, according to Scott, the prevalence of an individualistic, subjective philosophy which characterized the cultural period that was dominated by market control; and the importance of market control had begun to wane as the subjective philosophy gave way to a more “. . . matter-of-fact, impersonal, objective viewpoint. . . .”
Thus, Scott saw the competitive market becoming less and less applicable to current economic affairs. Accounting theory, on the other hand, had become more and more independent in its view-point until it was becoming a source of guidance to legal and administrative authorities in making decisions affecting social and economic phenomena. As a result, Scott contended, “. . . they [accounts] control such phenomena as well as interpret them to the extent that they control the actions of men which constitute social phenomena.” (p. 283)
In an article, “The Basis for Accounting Principles,” appearing in The Accounting Review (December, 1941), pp. 341-349, Scott pro¬posed three basic “principles” which testify to the intensity of his conviction regarding the destiny and responsibility of accounting in society. The cornerstone of accounting, Scott said, is justice; the remaining principles, truth and fairness, were supplemental, yet sub¬ordinate, to that principle.
When contemplating our current status, one’s attention is called to the enormous amount of time and effort the accounting profession has committed in recent years to the construction of a complex, often arbitrary, and sometimes conflicting maze of rules and objectives merely to keep abreast of a changing socioeconomic scene prophesied decades ago in the writings of a man who had only initials for a first name, and who seldom ventured from the University of Missouri campus.
(Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 5, 1974)
