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| THEN AND NOW: SOME REFLECTIONS OF AN EARLY MARYLAND PUBLIC ACCOUNTING PIONEER1
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By Stephen E. Loeb
Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Auditing,
University of Maryland, College Park
and historian, Maryland Association of CPAs
Frank Blacklock is, in my view, probably second only to Max Teichmann in historical importance in the founding of certified public accounting in Maryland. Blacklock wrote an article entitled "Suggestions to Those Who Would Enter the Profession of Accountancy: Paper I" that was published in the November 1897 issue of Business: The Office Paper.2 The article was the first in a "series of articles" that Frank Blacklock authored to assist individuals who recently had entered the accounting
profession.3
Two excerpts from this article4 by Frank Blacklock that I think are especially relevant today are reprinted below. The first excerpt
consists of the following two sentences:
"Above all, to be a successful public accountant you must deserve
confidence and rely upon it, that no weight of intellect nor breadth of
learning will commend you to the employing public unless your life is
of stainless rectitude, of kindly offices, of manly frankness, and a lofty
purpose to keep your good name at the top of the list of public
accountants."5
In this excerpt Blacklock suggests that strong personal and
professional ethics are crucial to success in public accounting.
Certainly, strong personal and professional ethics are as much key to
success in public accounting at the end of the 20th century as they
were at the end of the 19th century.
In the same article, Blacklock makes some predictions which are
contained in the following excerpt from his article:
"As certainly as coming events cast their shadows before, so surely
do the closing events of the nineteenth century indicate that numerous
changes are coming over the commercial world, and it is no great
prediction to assert that during the beginning of the twentieth century
the profession of accountancy in these United States will progress
with advanced strides and the public expert accountant will rank
professionally with the lawyer, doctor, civil engineer, architect, and
the other members of the learned professions, which require the
highest ability to produce the best possible results."6
Frank Blacklock's predictions, as to the professional status of public
accounting, made in 1897 turned out to be correct. Over the next few
years Frank Blacklock was to play a key role in helping to establish
certified public accounting in Maryland.7 As we look to the 21st
century, the public accounting profession that Frank Blacklock
helped establish in Maryland has long since attained the professional
stature that he foresaw. Today, both here in the State of Maryland
and throughout the United States, public accounting is a highly
respected profession.
Footnotes
1. I am indebted to Donal Byard for his assistance in obtaining the
article by Frank Blacklock on which this current brief article is based.
2. Frank Blacklock, November 1897. "Suggestions to Those Who
Would Enter the Profession of Accountancy: Paper I," Business:
The Office Paper, p.337.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
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