74 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. .324. 



dimeiis^ions based on metric weights and meas- 

 ures. The dassilications are making more 

 and more progress in Germany, not in the 

 iron trades alone, but in other manufactures. 

 In the future Germany, and the continent 

 generally, will have a constantly increasing 

 advantage over British manufactures in for- 

 eign countries, unless the metric system be 

 fully and entirely adopted by Great Britain. 

 I may mention as an undoubted fact that the 

 preference which Germany has obtained here 

 over Great Britain regarding railways, bridges 

 and other railway material is mainly owing 

 to the existence of this metric classification." 



Other items in the discussion were that 

 Kussia had directed her iron and steel works 

 to alter their rolling machinery so as to pro- 

 duce only rods, rails and sheets on a metric 

 scale, that 45 per cent, of British exports were 

 to non-metric countries and 55 to metric 

 countries (66 per cent, of United States im- 

 ports are invoiced in metric measures). At 

 present Britain has eighty different denomi- 

 nations represented by 155 different kinds of 

 weights and measures, which by this bill will 

 be reduced to thirty denominations repre- 

 sented by fifty-three different kinds of weights 

 and measures, or only one third the present 

 number. 



The bill was read a third tijuc in the house 

 of lords, May 17, and referred to a select com- 

 mittee to arrange the practical details neces- 

 sary to carry it into effect. It was then 

 passed and sent to the house of commons, and 

 read the first time. This discussion showed 

 that there was a very great popular demand 

 in England for the introduction of the metric 

 system, more than there is in this country at 

 the present time. England is a small country, 

 and the adjacent countries, France, Belgium, 

 Holland and all Scandinavia use the metric 

 system, hence people in general are brought 

 iinich more in contact with it than in the 

 United States, where we only touch the metric 

 system directly in Mexico, and even this con- 

 tact is having a decided effect in making the 

 system familiar to our citizens. 



The principal arguments now relied on by 

 the opponents of the metric system here are 

 that it has not displaced the old mea.snres in 



countries where it has been legalized, and that 

 its introduction would be a matter of enoriuous 

 expense. Any one who has had personal ex- 

 perience in foreign travel, or who will take 

 pains to inquire of any of the thousands of 

 emigrants that come among us, will soon con- 

 vince himself that the metric system is the 

 principal system in actual use in trade and 

 commerce in European countries. 



The very large number of working people 

 who appear in Lord Kelvin's list as advocates 

 of the metric system a^e drawn to its support 

 not only by the actual contact with metric- 

 using nations, but also by the handicap im- 

 posed by the British system on getting a useful 

 practical education. This point is increasing 

 in importance since the complete change of 

 both British and American text-books to the 

 metric system. The absurdity is patent of 

 requiring the workman to use an old system 

 different from that in which all knowledge is 

 gathered by the original workers and com- 

 municated to their students, and of which the 

 great mass of operatives are ignorant. The 

 operatives themselves, as soon as they become 

 fully aware of it, demand the possession of 

 this key to knowledge and the higher educa- 

 tion. 



We have heard a great deal in. the last three 

 yf ars about the enormous expense of adopting 

 the metric system. The great majority of 

 people who talk about this expense do not 

 know anything about the actual use of the 

 metric system, and have not brought one scrap 

 of testimony that supports their views from 

 countries that have made the change, while 

 most of those who advocate the system are 

 in the actual use of it as teachers, investiga- 

 tors, etc. The opponents of the system are 

 in the position of a man who condemns a tool 

 without ever having used it. Now Lord 

 Kelvin said in his argument before the lords 

 that " last year inquiries were made of head 

 masters of schools, 197 sent replies, of whom 

 169 said the saving of time by teaching the 

 metric system would be one year, thirty said 

 it would be two years and six said it would be 

 three years. The senior mathematical master 

 of Edinburgh high school wrote, tliat in view 

 of tlip wearing out of teachers and scholars in 



