Kojiro Nishikawa
TOKYO, JAPAN
HISTORICAL STUDIES IN RECENT YEARS IN JAPAN
According to the recent membership roster of the American Ac-counting Association, Japan ranks third in number of members, next to the United States and Canada, surpassing other English speaking countries, including England and Australia. It seems then that Japan is among those nations where studies in accounting have gained great popularity. It is quite natural, however, that Japan, an impor tant nation economically, ranks third in relation to interest in the study of accounting, since accounting is a necessary skill useful to business management.
Accounting Historians in Japan are likewise active in many areas of the history of accounting.
In 1973, Professor Osamu Kojima of Kansel-gakuin University published 150 copies of a facsimile edition of Pacioli’s Summa de Arthmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (1494). Kojima is now planning to issue 150 copies of a facsimile of Ympyn’s work, A Notable and Very Excellente Woorke, (1547) with a supplement of exercises by Professor Basil Yamey.
A Tokyo firm has published 200 facsimile copies of Pacioli’s De Divina Proportione, (1 509). Another Tokyo publisher has issued Testamenti de Fra Luca Pacioli, arranged with the original on the left-hand pages and the Japanese version on the right-hand pages, accompanied by a short explanation by Professor Asahi Nakanishi. In addition, another author, a former student at Nikon University, has translated Pacioli’s Bookkeeping Treatise and published it at his own expense quite recently.1 He used Brown and Johnston’s Paciolo on Accounting as a model for his book, but has rendered it from the original Italian text of the first and second editions at taching thereto a photographic reproduction of the original treatise of the second edition. Whether the accounting academicians of Japan will accept this work as another valid Japanese version of Pacioli’s treatise is yet to be known. Furthermore, the Second Edition of Pacioli’s treatise has been published in Japan for the f irst time.
Modern industrialized Japanese society had its beginning about one hundred years ago, so in the recent years many centenary ob-servations occurred reawakening an interest in the study of history. The year 1973 marked the centennial of the adoption of Western Bookkeeping methods in 1873, and the Japan Accounting Associa tion sponsored several historical programs in commemoration of the occasion, including lecture meetings, compilation of a bibliography of works on bookkeeping and accounting in Japan, and a special study by a group of professors in the History of Development of Accounting in Japan.
The lecture meetings were held twice during 1973 and included the following topics:2
1. Development of the Bookkeeping Method Native to Japan and the Western Method Imported. Eichiro Ogura
2. Development of Business Accounting and Accounting for Social Cost. Yasuichi Sakamoto
3. Accounting Education, Old and New. Rintaro Aoki
4. A Significant Year (1873) in the History of Bookkeeping in Japan. Kojiro Nishikawa3
5. Development of Corporate Financial Statements in Japan. lchiro Kantano
6. Accounting Development, 1873-1973, in Japan. Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
A combination of the bibliography has just begun and will take a few years to complete. As to the progress of the Study Group, Pro fessor Kurosawa reported at the recent annual meeting of the Asso ciation held at Nagasake University on June 19. He asserted that the study of the science of accounting in Japan had begun with the late Professor Naotaro Shimono’s thesis, “An Essay on Some Account ing Problems” and “The Nature and Form of Balance Sheet.” The former was his doctoral dissertation at the Tokyo University of Com merce in 1927 and the latter was a paper submitted to the lnter national Accountants’ Congress, 1929. The group willccontinue the study of the origins of this subject—the history of modern account ing thought—for another year.
In contrast to the historical projects of Japan being undertaken by the Japan Accounting Association, other areas of interest are being pursued by individual Japanese accounting historians. In gen eral, they seem to be inclined to research specific topics dealing with the influence of Western accounting. This is supported by the topics of this list of some significant historical works published in Japan during the last five years.
1. The History of Growth of Accounting, Studies in the Accounting Rules of the French Ordinance in 1673, (1975). Etsuzo Kishi.
2. The History of Development of Industrial Accounting, (1 974). Yutaka Hayakawa.
3. Studies in the History of Depreciation in Meiji Era, (1974). Sadao Taketera. The author compiled this book on the actual data of banks and steamship companies of Japan in Meiji period.
4. Seminary-room of Accounting, Kansei-gakuin University; Historical Studies in Contemporary Accounting, (1973). This is the commemorative issue for the 60th birthday of Prof. Kojima and includes 16 essays of which one refers to Japanese accounting.
5. Seminary-room of Accounting, Hosei University; Studies in Accounting Thought, (1973). A publication in commemoration of the 70th birthday of Prof. Yoshio Kataoka. First Part, Early History of Double Entry Bookkeeping by Y. Kataoka. Second Part, Japanese Version of Deinzer’s Development of Accounting Thought by the members of the Seminary.
6. The History of Bookkeeping, (1973). Osamu Kojima. Three chapters out of five chapters of this book refer to early Japanese accounting.
7. The History of Accounting Theory, (1972). Shinkichi Mineura.
8. Historical Development of Double Entry Bookkeeping in England, (1971). Osamu Kojima.
9. Development in Management Accountancy, (1 971). Atsuo Tsuji.
10. Stories of the History of Bookkeeping in Japan, (1971). Kojiro
Nishikawa. This book was written on the basis of Japanese bookkeeping texts and other source materials included in the author’s collection.
Japan is one of the oldest nations in the world and yet one of the “newest.” Western bookkeeping methods came in on the top of the native indigenous method which had been firmly established for centuries. Both of these systems developed quite peculiarly in the modern nation of Japan. Yet Japanese accounting historians have not directed a great deal of their research toward these matters perhaps because they consider them too provincial. Nonetheless it would appear that more Japanese accounting scholars must accept the challenge of doing research into these matters in the years to come.
FOOTNOTES
1 Japanese Version of Pacioli’s Bookkeeping Treatise by Koichi Honda.
2 Special Issue, Lecture Meetings in Commemoration of the Centenary of Modem Accounting System of Japan, Kaikei (Accounting) Vol. 105, No. 3, March, 1974.
3 Working Paper No. 10. The Academy of Accounting Historians.
4 Richard Homburger, “The State of Modern Accounting History,” Kaikei (Ac-counting) Vol. 107, NO. 3, March, 1975.
(Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 1, 7, 1975)
