Excerpt from Elements of Statistics

Throughout is intended to be suitable for those whose mathematics have not been carried to any height or have become rusty from disuse. With this view, when mathe matical symbols were unavoidable, the preliminary hypotheses have been first discussed without algebraic notation and at some length, and those proofs have been chosen which require the minimum mathematical know ledge rather than those which lead most directly to the result. Thus the most important results of the Theory of Error have been obtained without the use of the Differ ential or Integral Calculus, and it is hoped that the greater part even of the chapter on Correlation will be intelligible to those who are not so well equipped as the Major General in the Pirates of Panzanoe. Part II. Is in tended to be introductory and is certainly incomplete the normal law of frequency is the only one discussed, and the correlation of three variables is untouched. The more advanced treatment of this part of the subject is likely to be of interest to but few, who will have little trouble in obtaining the books and journals in which the further development may be found. Short bibliographies are added to the chapter on Interpolation and to Part II. For this purpose. It is hoped that this elementary handling may be of use to some who are interested in the statistical arguments based on the Laws of Probability, and that the definitions, formulae, and proofs given may save others from the necessity of searching in books, long out of print, for elementary theorems and deductions. The treatment in Part II., Section II., is peculiar in that it leaves very much in the background the Method of Least Squares; the phrase, useful in some connections, seems to make the application of the Law of Error to statistics.

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