Ixii REPORT—1863. 
age. Cheap and rapid postage to all parts of the world—paper and printing 
reduced to the lowest possible cost—electric telegraphs between nation and 
nation, town and town, and now even (thanks to the beautiful inventions of 
Professor Wheatstone) between house and house—all contribute to aid that 
commerce of ideas by which wealth and knowledge are augmented. But 
while so much facility is given to mental communication by new measures 
and new inventions, the fundamental art of expressing thought by written 
symbols remains as imperfect now as it has been for centuries past. It seems 
strange that while we actually possess a system of shorthand by which words 
tan be recorded as rapidly as they can be spoken, we should persist in writing 
a slow and laborious longhand. It is intelligible that grown-up persons who 
have acquired the present conventional art of writing should be reluctant to 
incur the labour of mastering a better system; but there can be no reason why 
the rising generation should not be instructed in a method of writing more in 
accordance with the activity of mind which now prevails. Even without 
going so far as to adopt for ordinary use a complete system of stenography, 
which it is not easy to acquire, we might greatly abridge the time and labour 
of writing by the recognition of a few simple signs to express the syllables 
which are of most frequent occurrence in our language. Our words are in a 
great measure made up of such syllables as com, con, tion, ing, able, ain, ent, 
est, ance, &c. These we are now obliged to write out over and over again, as 
if time and labour expended in what may be termed visual speech were of no 
importance. Neither has our written character the advantage of distinctness 
to recommend it: it is only necessary to write such a word as “ minimum ” 
or “ammunition” to become aware of the want of sufficient difference be- 
tween the letters we employ. I refrain from enlarging on this subject, 
because I conceive that it belongs to social more than to physical science, 
although the boundary which separates the two is sufficiently indistinct to 
permit of my alluding to it in the hope of procuring for it the attention 
which its importance deserves. 
Another subject of a social character which demands our consideration is 
the much-debated question of weights and measures. Whatever difference of 
opinion there may be as to the comparative merits of decimal and duodecimal 
division, there can, at all events, be none as to the importance of assimilating 
the systems of measurement in different countries. Science suffers by the 
want of uniformity, because valuable observations made in one country are in 
a great measure lost to another from the labour required to convert a series 
of quantities into new denominations. International commerce is also im- 
peded by the same cause, which is productive of constant inconvenience and 
frequent mistake. It is much to be regretted that two standards of measure 
so nearly alike as the English yard and the French metre should not be made 
absolutely identical. The metric system has already been adopted by other 
nations besides France, and is the only one which has any chance of becoming 
universal. We in England, therefore, have no alternative but to conform 
with France, if we desire general uniformity. The change might easily be 
introduced in scientific literature, and in that case it would probably 
extend itself by degrees amongst the commercial classes without much 
legislative pressure. Besides the advantage which would thus be gained 
in regard to uniformity, I am convinced that the adoption of the decimal 
division of the French scale would be attended with great convenience, 
both in science and commerce. I can speak from personal experience of 
the superiority of decimal measurement in all cases where accuracy is re- 
quired. in mechanical construction. In the Elswick Works, as well as in 
