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The article discusses various articles published within the issue, including one on statistician Samuel S. Wilks' contributions to statistics and another by W. Edwards Deming on Wilks award.

This article recalls and comments on the varied contributions, many of enduring value, made by Samuel Wilks to the theory and practice of statistics. Multivariate analysis, order statistics, and statistical inference have especially benefited from his research. His unflagging work on behalf of the profession as teacher, writer, editor, advisor, and committee member raised the visibility of the field of statistics and increased recognition of its wide relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to the establishment of a sound pattern of statistical education for college undergraduates. The uses of statistics and statistical methods have become evident throughout business, industry, government, and scientific research in recent years that this matter concerns not only the professional statisticians themselves, but many thousands of persons in these fields who are finding it necessary to become intelligent consumers of statistics and statistical methods. The validity of the urgent need of a better educational set- up for statistics should be based on the premise that statistics is fundamentally important and in fact indispensable to modern society.

The article discusses errors in surveys. In the planning of a survey, effort should be directed toward the reduction of all of the errors that it is possible to reduce. Consideration of all the errors that will affect the ultimate usefulness of a survey largely determines whether errors should be taken at all. A thorough-going plan of theoretical and experimental investigation into the nature of bias and variability in response is needed to avoid errors. Sampling errors have the characteristics of being controllable through the size and design of the sample.