Excerpt from History, Theory, and Technique of Statistics, Vol. 1: History of Statistics
In presenting to the English public a work like the present a word of explanation seems in order. Professor Meitzen"s work, "Geschichte, Theorie, und Technik der Statistik," represents the most complete statement of theoretical statistics, in the smallest compass, in the German language. Its translation therefore has appeared desirable as well on account of its form as its matter.
In regard to form, the work covers systematically the whole field of statistical theory, and thus furnishes the student an insight into the relation of the parts not to be gained by the consideration of special problems. In this respect the work represents a familiar habit of the German mind which has some signal advantages. We are apt in England and America to devote our study to special problems, and whole fields of research, long since systematized in Continental Europe, and there known, inaptly perhaps, as sciences, must be studied by the English student from treatises on special subjects, and he must in his own thought establish the connecting-links which bring about the harmony of the whole. If it be necessary to adduce instances of this fact let us consider for a moment the whole subject of public finance. An exhaustive treatment of the subject in English cannot be named, whereas the student of the subject at once recalls the names of German, French, and Italian writers who have devoted systematic treatises to it. The same is true of other topics, but notably so of that which we are now considering, statistics. It may be doubted whether the conception of statistics as a connected organic science is familiar even to those whose achievements in this field have been most honorable. Certainly no exhaustive treatise on the subject exists in our language despite the valued contributions made by English science to the subject. Hence the translation of the present work has been prepared partly with a view to the opportunity which it afforded for the comparison of German methods of thought with our own. No attempt will be made here to weigh the relative merits of each.
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