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... A. L. BOWLEY. (London: P. S. King & Son. 1901.) IT is somewhat remarkable that up to the present time there should be no book on the Elements of Statistics written in the English languaoe. England possesses several statisticians of great eminence. The Statistical Society celebrated its jubilee a good many years ago, and popular magazines often contain most admirable statistical articles. What, then, is the reason why we have no elementary text-books on the subject? Probably because elementary statistics was not until recently taught as a subject at the universities; or if a course of lectures on that subject was advertised, students were not pressed to go, and were encouraged in the belief that a little common sense could easily take the place of regular training in dealing with tables of numbers. The London School of Economics has, however, since its foundation had systematic courses of lectures on the elements of statistics, and the School therefore is entitled to share with Mr. Bowley the congratulations which are due to him for supplying a long-felt want. Without further ado it may be plainly stated that, whatever its shortcomings, which are dealt with later, this book is the best book on the Elements of Statistics written in English, French, German, or Italian. The first chapter deals with the scope and meaning of statistics, a topic which has been debated for more than a century. Mr. Bowley does not distinguish clearly between the theory of statistics and the theory of errors of observation, and many of his statements, such as " Statistics may rightly be called the science of averages," or, "The chemist experimenting in his laboratory is like the statistician; the chemist theorising in his study is like the economist," would form a pretty subject for a three hours essay. But discussions as to the scope and meaning of science, though of great value for many purposes, are of little value in teaching us the elements of that science. Chapters II. and III. deal with the general method of statistical investigation and illustrations of that method. The population census is so important that it is right to give great attention to it, and it would have been well if Mr. Bowley had given more prominence to the very important This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Thu, 26 Feb 2015 08:54:31 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions