Statistics as a Profession In 1944-45 the American Statistical Association approached the latter problem in connection with the development of the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel. Jointly with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Association took part in defining the profession of statistics. They defined a statistician as a person "versed in the science of collecting and analyzing numerical data," 1 with a strong emphasis on mathematical methods and only a casual reference to the self-evident requirement that a statistician must be familiar with the field from which his statistics come. Such a definition meets the formal requirements of the Roster but does not attempt to bring statistics into relationship with other sciences. If statistics were nothing but mathematics applied to a definite type of observations, there would be no limits to mathematics in this field except those determined by the quality of the material, the progress of mathematical methods, and the mathematical skill of the statistician.