Joseph C. Watkins wrote:Many university students, presumed to be proficient in college algebra, are taught a variety of procedures and standard tests under a well-developed pedagogy. This approach is sufficiently refined so that students have a good intuitive understanding of the underlying principles presented in the course. However, if the statistical needs presented by a given scientific question fall outside the battery of methods presented in the standard curriculum, then students are typically at a loss to adjust the procedures to accommodate the additional demand. 

On the other hand, undergraduate students majoring in mathematics frequently have a course on the theory of statistics as a part of their program of study. In this case, the standard curriculum repeatedly finds itself close to the very practically minded subject that statistics is. However, the demands of the syllabus provide very little time to explore these applications with any sustained attention. 

Our goal is to find a middle ground.

Despite the fact that calculus is a routine tool in the development of statistics, the benefits to students who have learned calculus are infrequently employed in the statistics curriculum. The objective of this book is to meet this need with a one semester course in statistics that moves forward in recognition of the coherent body of knowledge provided by statistical theory having an eye consistently on the application of the subject. Such a course may not be able to achieve the same degree of completeness now presented by the two more standard courses described above. ...