But the profession's more recent history -- the accounting scandals that brought down giant corporations and bankrupted investors -- provoked much discussion at the conference, which brought accountants from 20 countries to the University of Mississippi this week.

There are as many lessons to learn from Enron, World Com, Adelphia and Parmalat as there are from a 14th century ledger and other historical treasures housed at the National Library of the Accounting Profession at Ole Miss, delegates said.

On Wednesday, Eugene Flegm, the former auditor of General Motors Corp., bemoaned the lack of rear end-kickers in the accounting profession. Accountants should not be afraid to stand up to the pressure from CEOs looking to exaggerate profits to impress stockholders.

"I would've been a great umpire," Flegm said. "I would love to throw the managers out of the game."

According to Flegm, a number of factors in modern accounting practices created the conditions for a "perfect storm," in which the scandals of the past three years were nearly inevitable. A lack of business ethics, a congressional misunderstanding of the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission, pressure from company boards of directors, and poor internal controls all contributed to a bad environment, Flegm said.

Most of all, Flegm said, public accounting became a commodity, ane financially dependent on the companies for whom they should have been watchdogs.

"The goal had become to please the clients," he said, with accountants telling CEOs what they wanted to hear instead of the verifiable truth.

Flegm told a personal story to illustrate that point. In a disagreement, a CFO once told him that, as the auditor, Flegm's job should be to do whatever the CFO told him to do. Flegm replied that was not his job. The CFO demanded: Well, what is?

"I told him, 'To keep [you] out of jail,'" Flegm said. "He said, 'Point taken,' and backed down."

More accountants must step up as Flegm did if they want to keep their clients -- and themselves -- out of jail and restore honor to the profession, he said.

As chairman of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Scott Voynich of Columbus, Ga., said the international meeting offered modern accountants a chance to get back to their roots.

"With all the new tools at our disposal, the key, the real challenge, is behavior," Voynich said. "That's what we've got to change.

"There were a lot of things in accounting history that indicated that these kind of troubles -- Enron and World Com and so on -- were brewing," Voynich said. "The profession needs to come back to center."

Delegates ate lunch at William Faulkner's newly restored antebellum mansion, Rowan Oak, and listened to the talk "William Faulkner: The Ne'er-Do-Well Accountant" by Joe Urgo, chair of UM's English department.

The World Congress of Accounting Historians [ended] Thursday with a tour of the National Library of the Accounting profession, the largest accounting library collection in the world, which is permanently housed at Ole Miss.