1887.] ^t)5 [Taylor. 



every species of property ; to evehy transaction of trade and commerce ; to 

 the labors of the husbandman ; to the Ingenuity of the artificer ; to the 

 studies of the phih^sopher ; to the researches of the antiquarian ; to the 

 navigation of the mariner, and the marches of the soldier ; to all the ex- 

 changes of peace, and all the operations of war. The knowledge of them, 

 as in established use, is among the first elements of education, and is often 

 learned by tho.se who learn nothing else, not even to read and write. This 

 knowledge is rivetted in the memory by the habitual application of it to 

 tlie employments of men throughout life. Every individual, or at least 

 every family, has the weights and measures used in the vicinity and recog- 

 nized by the custom of the place. To change all this at once, is to affect 

 the well-being of every man, woman and child in the community. It en- 

 ters every house, it cripples every hand." 



The failure that attends the introduction, and the objections that have 

 so far prevented the adoption of the metric system in Great Britain and 

 in the United States, notwithstanding the strenuous and untiring efforts of 

 its advocates, sufficiently attest the need of some other scheme, which, 

 while possessing the advantages claimed by that, may be free from its dis- 

 advantages and defects. 



Great Britain has shown such a determined opposition to the metric sys- 

 tem, that, in the International Monetary Conference held in Paris in 18(i7, she 

 refused even to negotiate in reference to unity of coinage, and her dele- 

 gates stated 'that until it should be incontestably demonstrated that the 

 adoption of a new sj'stem offered superior advantages justifying the aban- 

 donment of that which was approved by experience and rooted in the hab- 

 its of the people, the British government could not take the initiative in 

 assimilating its money with that of the Continent." 



She maintains the most complex system of measures, weights and coin- 

 age now In use among civilized nations ; she persistently rejects the deci- 

 mal system and adheres to the complex division of pounds, shillings and 

 pence, a system abandoned by the United States in their rejection of col- 

 onial dependence. 



A very strong objection to accepting the metre, either directly or indi- 

 rectly, as our national standard of length is the want of absolute precision 

 in the rule itself. It has been shown by the investigations of able mathe- 

 maticians, that the metre is not an exact expression of its theoretical 

 value, and as the result of more extended geodetic measurement up to 

 1875, that the quarter of the meridian is equal to 10,001850 metres, 

 and that consequently the metre is too short by ^^^q part of its length. 

 This unfortunate and vital defect in the French metre nullifies almost en- 

 tirely its value as a natural standard, and defeats the principal object of 

 its establishment — the facility of its perfect restoration in all future time 

 should the existing material standards be destroyed. The metre is just as 

 arbitrary a standard as the yard ; the only real thing about it is the plat- 

 inum rod in the public archives in Paris, and this has no advantage over 

 the English standard kept in the British exchequer. 



PROC. AMER. pniLos. 80C. XXIV. 12G. 2m. printed NOV. 21, 1887. 



