The Translation In The Late Qing Dynasty 《A General Treatise On Statistics》 Research

After Sino-Japanese War, China started learning from Japan. In this process, western statistics spread from Japan into China. At that time, as the only widely distributed statistics book in China,《A General Treatise On Statistics》 that was written by Yokoyama Masao gave the greatest impact to China. Therefore, the research of the book can be as the starting point to study the history of western statistics into China, the difference between western statistics and ancient Chinese statistics, and the influence of Yokoyama Masao’s social statistics for China at that time.The first part, introduces the research background, related literature, and the original work of this paper.The second part, firstly introduces the economic background, social background and ideological background of rise and development of western statistics; secondly introduces the social background and process of Japan’s introduction of Western statistics; finally introduces social background of China’s introduction of western statistics, and investigates the establishing process, personnel and statistical work of government statistical agencies in the late Qing dynasty. From these investigations, it can be seen that political need play very important role in China’s introduction of western statistics.The third part, firstly introduces the author Yokoyama Masao’s life story and his experience about launching statistics education in Japan; secondly introduces the translator’s life story, including Niu Yongjian, Lin Zhuonan, Meng Sen, and their experiences of studying in Japan; finally analyzes Meng Sen’ comments in 《A General Treatise On Statistics》, from which it can be seen that Meng Sen’ viewpoints about statistics, Chinese academic and politics.The fourth part, firstly investigates the relationship of three books 《A General Treatise On Statistics》,《Statistics Lecture》 and 《Notes On Statistics Lecture》, and corrects previous researcher’s error about the relationship of the three books; secondly investigates Japanese and Chinese editions of 《A General Treatise On Statistics》, and investigates which Japanese edition the Chinese translation was translated from; finally introduces the main content of 《A General Treatise On Statistics》The fifth part, firstly introduces the three main theories of statistics in early stage; secondly analyzes Yokoyama Masao’s statistical thought in 《A General Treatise On Statistics》, especially his comprehension of the premise that law of large numbers needs to satisfy.The sixth part, mainly discusses the influence of 《A General Treatise On Statistics》 in the history of Chinese statistics. Firstly analyzes the similarities and differences between the Western statistics that was introduced in the late Qing Dynasty and Chinese ancient statistics, and it’s found that notable difference is lack of analysis idea in ancient Chinese statistics; secondly, investigates the history of early statistics education in China, and discusses the influence of the social statistics style (compared to the mathematical statistics) in 《A General Treatise On Statistics》 to early statistics education in China.