Matuszak Blog 2.5.2005

Nouns and verbs -- the Difference

The Accountant's Readership

According to a survey conducted on World Book Day last year, accountants read more for pleasure than many other professionals. It was estimated that accountants spend an average of more than five hours per week reading their favourite choices. Five hours may not sound much, but in the modern busy world it represents quite an investment of time to devote to reading – certainly more than the MPs, journalists and teachers surveyed were able to put in.

Reason for studying humanities

That brings us to the second necessary component at the core of their education: the humanities, the study of literature and art. What is their purpose? To help maturing students articulate the human consequences of their technological choices, to aid them in drawing up the unfinished agenda of humanity, to educate them in the past so they will have an objective standard against which to measure their relative success or failure as civilized beings, to communicate to them the collective wisdom of their race, and to inspire new creative acts. But, most of all, to pose moral challenges that will rouse them from complacency and encourage their ascent from the merely human to the truly humane.