Abstract

According to the author, before discussing the place that mathematics should occupy in current schools of business curricula, he would like to make his position clear. In 1952, as a member of a panel on the role of mathematics in the social sciences presented at the Hacker Foundation in Los Angeles, California, the author made a ten-minute statement, which several of the listeners thought should be given a wider audience. Subsequently, this appeared as "Mathematics: Logic, Quality and Method," in the November 1954 issue of the journal Review of Economics and Statistics. The editor of the journal had chosen to make this the occasion for a symposium on mathematical economics, and some twenty-seven pages in that same issue were the first part of the reaction to author's remarks. The basis of the curriculum of the schools of business must obviously be the attempt to prepare students for some ultimate objective, not conformity to a trend or a style. Only if stresses on mathematics lead to the realization of the purpose of the school, can it be accepted as meritorious. According to the author he has no advice to offer on the best method of training students to recognize and formulate the problems of business in something like their older of importance.