82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



METEIC REFORM. 



By SAMUEL BAKNETT. 



THE ultimate triumph of the metric system may be regarded as safe, 

 beyond peradventure ; no event still in the future is more cer- 

 tain. A universal system of weights, measures, and currency, is an im- 

 perative demand of advancing civilization ; and this particular solution 

 is worthy of the great problem, fit for all countries and for all time. It 

 has the start, the prestige, the substantial merits, the already large 

 adoption, which insure universality. 



Its progress has in many respects been most gratifying. One nation 

 after another has yielded to the arguments in its favor. Dr. Barnard's 

 tables show that in Europe in 1872 France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, 

 Spain, Portugal, Italy, Roumania, and Greece, had adopted it in full ; 

 Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Baden, Hesse,Wurtemburg, and 

 Bavaria, adopted metric values, and even conservative England rendered 

 the system permissive. The whole map of Europe is thus riddled lit- 

 tle of it left ; the rest is sure to follow. So in North America the 

 United States, Canada, and Mexico ; in South America New Granada, 

 Eucador, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Chili, and the Argentine Confederation; 

 and, among other countries, British India, the French, Dutch, and 

 Spanish colonies, and Japan, are numbered. Thus, nearly all the most 

 advanced nations of the earth are committed to it, and its universality is 

 but a question of time. There will be no steps backward now, but only 

 forward. 



All this seems highly satisfactory and encouraging, and it may be 

 asked, " What more could be desired or expected ? " But there is an- 

 other side to the picture. 



Among the common people its progress has been as conspicuously 

 slow as rapid among the nations. The statistics of its actual use, could 

 they be had, would be heartily discouraging. In some way, and for 

 some reason, upon the common mind it does not take hold. Indeed, in 

 a discriminating view, its reception, even among the nations, compares 

 unfavorably with that of many other inventions and devices of modern 

 times: steam, railroads, telegraphy, photography, already cover the 

 earth all of later date than this system. 



With all its admitted merits, the activity of its friends, and the co- 

 operation of governments, the metric system makes no headway among 

 the masses of mankind. As yet but a barren triumph has been achieved ; 

 the consent of the government, and not of the people, is the assent of 

 the parents, but not of the maiden. Permission to woo is all we have 

 obtained. 



Even in France, although the system was provisionally established 

 as early as 1793, and made obligatory, a full generation ago, in 1840, 



