1887.] ^*^ [Taylor. 



arithmetic, Tvith its immense stores of foct and formula, is certainly a 

 most startling proposal ; and is one which will doubtless be regarded by 

 the majority of persons as a scheme chimerical and impossible. We are 

 impressed with a calm conviction that it does not even offer any real diffi- 

 culty. The enormous labor of reconstruction involved, we seek not to 

 deny or to underrate. But this is a trouble which must alwaj'^s be com- 

 mensurate with the greatness of the reformation. This necessity would, 

 however, most probably stimulate to the development and perfection of 

 that most uselul ally, tiie calculating machine. Rendered simpler in its 

 construction by the very system which should require its services, and 

 made popular and general by the new demand, it seems not improbable 

 that a single century of theoclonary empire would place the world on a 

 higher platform than it would even reach without it. Such has been 

 the usual history of difficulty and of success. A national government 

 has but to will it to ensure its establishment ; and after the first impedi- 

 ments of custom were surmounted, we nothing doubt, that the facility 

 and manifold conveniences of the new regime would form its most power- 

 ful support, and its surest recommendation to popular favor. 



If the octonary system have the germ of vitality, here imagined, its 

 adoption by any one of the great nations of Christendom would as surely 

 pave the way to its universal prevalence, as did the introduction of the 

 Hindoo notation, and of the Gregorian calendar. Nor are the obstacles 

 which so long delayed those great reforms, either as numerous or as 

 serious at the present day, as they were in by-gone centuries. The tone 

 and temper of the times — intellectual, moral, and political — differ widely 

 from those of our ancestors ; and in our common school sj'stem we have 

 a moral mechanism for the inoculation of new truth, untried and un- 

 known in all past ages.* Whenever the octonary numeration should be 

 definitely established by political authority, we would immediately have 

 all young children instructed for a year or two, only in the octonary 

 arithmetic — as furnishing the easiest and most rational introduction to 

 the knowledge of figures. And not until after a complete mastery of this 

 arithmetic should they be taught the use of decimals — still required for 

 a considerable period to enable reductions to be made from the old style 

 to the new. This would be attended with no more labor than is the addi- 

 tional study now of ordinary Algebra ; while in the distinctive languages 

 of the two scales would be found a safeguard against all danger or diffi- 

 culty, in confounding the one value with the other. 



* In the interesting report made to the Secrctarj' of the Treasury, Dec. 30, 18.56, by Prof. 

 Bache, Suiierintendcnt of Weights and Meu.sures, it is well remarked in rehition to the 

 facility of introducing a decimal system, that "One generation would nearly suffice to 

 ehect this change, if, as in Holland, the new weights and measures were introduced 

 through the schools. The children of the country becoming familiar with them in the 

 primary schools, seeing the actual material standards of length, cajiacity and weight 

 at frequent and stated times in early youth, and retaining that familiarity as they 

 passed into the higher schools, would be readily prepared for their universal use wheji 

 reaching mature life." 



