September 16, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



375 



consists in making things to required sizes.' 

 In scientific work the change involves a change 

 in measuring instruments only, while in in- 

 dustrial work it involves a complete change in 

 standardized manufactured goods — a change 

 which manufacturers know to be impossible. 

 I can not ask for space to enlarge upon this, 

 but it explains completely the different atti- 

 tudes of the two parties. 



Mr. Dale and I profess to speak as those 

 who are experienced in manufacturing, and 

 as having given protracted study to the effect 

 of this change upon manufacturing industry. 

 As scientific men have, rightly, no respect for 

 the opinions of the non-scientific upon scien- 

 tific questions, so we have no respect for the 

 opinions of those who have no expert knowl- 

 edge of manufacturing upon the effect of this 

 change upon manufacturing industry. We 

 acknowledge that our language is harsh, but 

 it is in no way more so than the stock dis- 

 missal of all objections to this change as due 

 to ' ignorant prejudice,' and it is not for those 

 who have always treated our views with con- 

 tempt to object when they find their own non- 

 expert views treated in the same manner. 

 While Professor Stevens, although opposed to 

 us, has been so generous as to frankly give 

 recognition to our book by saying that it con- 

 tains ' a mass of information that must be 

 taken into account,' he should, and doubtless 

 does, know that the chief weapons of the pro- 

 metric party have been ridicule and contempt, 

 and he should not criticize us for making use 

 of the same guns. We believe that we are 

 justified in using them when discussing opin- 

 ions that entirely fail to recognize the im- 

 portance, in many cases the existence, and in 

 all the formidable nature of the difficulties 

 that surround the manufacturing side of the 

 question. What scientific men need to learn 

 more than all else in connection with this 

 subject is that their experience, their knowl- 

 edge and their horizon do not include manu- 

 facturing. They have uniformly failed to 

 recognize the difference, or, indeed, that there 

 is a difference between measuring things and 

 making things. They are measurers, not 

 makers, and their opinions have no value and 

 no application as related to manufacturing. 



The proposition is that we make this change 

 • in industry and commerce. It is, therefore, an 

 industrial and commercial, and not a scientific 

 question. It is the province of scientific men 

 to determine the weights and measures which 

 they shall use, but when they endeavor to 

 foist this thing upon others who must pay the 

 cost, while they pay nothing, as they have 

 succeeded in doing wherever the system has 

 been adopted, and as they have tried to do 

 here through the hearings of the house com- 

 mittee on coinage, weights and measures, they 

 simply meddle with other people's affairs, and 

 exhibit an assurance which furnishes the occa- 

 sion, and I believe the justifiable occasion, for 

 the vigorous language of ' The Metric Fal- 

 lacy ' which, however, has obviously not pre- 

 vented Professor Stevens from learning some 

 wholesome facts from it. 



Contrast the enormous development of or- 

 ganized manufacturing to-day with its com- 

 paratively trifiing development at the intro- 

 duction of the metric system in France a 

 century ago. Even with that trifling develop- 

 ment Professor Stevens admits that ' conserva- 

 tism has been too strong and vested interests 

 too great to permit the enforcement of any 

 interfering laws.' Is it not obvious that the 

 change in France under the conditions of a 

 century ago was easy compared with what it 

 now is here ? If, starting with the conditions 

 of 1793, and after a century of compulsory 

 laws, resort to the old units is in France still 

 ' usual when no penalty is involved,' how many 

 centuries must elapse before that resort be- 

 comes unusual under existing manufacturing 

 development here where general compulsion is 

 not to be contemplated? 



Were the metric party to unite on the ad- 

 missions made by Professor Stevens when pre- 

 senting their case to the committee on coin- 

 age, weights and measures — and I shall see 

 to it that they go before any such future com- 

 mittee — the metric bill would be killed at the 

 hands of its friends as it was last winter killed 

 at the hands of its enemies, for, contrary ap- 

 parently to the impressions of Professor 

 Stevens, the metric system from a legislative 

 standpoint is the ' deadest ' thing in this' 

 country. F. A. Halsey. 



New York, August 30, 1904. 



