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"In 1932 the Social Science Research Council appointed a committee to define the place of collegiate mathematics in the social sciences. The report of this committee urged that students of the social sciences be prepared for the study of statistics by a six to nine semester hour course covering logarithms, graphs, interpolation, equations and forms of important curves, probability, elements of differential and integral calculus, and curve fitting. The report also suggested that "illustrations from the social sciences should be used freely, and the concepts and processes should be presented in such a manner as to make clear their application in the social sciences." The committee concluded that statistics courses might thus be utilized to carry the student much farther in the knowledge of statistical methods, and their possibilities and limitations. In the development of this book, the authors have had these recommendations in mind, and have prepared a text suitable for a six semester hour course to follow such a course in mathematical analysis as that urged by the committee. While fully indorsing the recommendations of the committee, the authors realize that the instructor will in many cases be faced by the necessity of teaching classes lacking the desired preparation in mathematics. Therefore, this book has been designed for use in several ways. Algebraic processes are given in full. While the proofs do not presuppose a knowledge of the calculus, many of them are necessarily based on its principles. Therefore, for classes which have had a survey course in mathematics, or a course in calculus, the instructor may easily associate the proofs with the corresponding calculus proofs"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).