As^pSe?fi902.u}    Metric  System  of  Weights  and  Measures.  413 
understood  by  teaching  it  in  the  schools,  and  otherwise  giving  the 
details  of  the  system  wide  publicity,  especially  among  such  of  its 
citizens  as  are  actively  engaged  in  manufactures  or  commerce. 
It  is  hoped  that  by  this  means  the  system  will  have  become  so 
well  known  by  the  time  a  necessity  for  change  arises,  that  the  latter 
will  cause  little  or  no  disturbance  in  the  ordinary  channels  of  trade. 
The  feeling  that  exists  among  representative  manufacturers  in  our 
own  country  is  well  summed  up  in  the  report  of  the  House  Com- 
mittee on  Coinage,  Weights  and  Measures,  and  also  in  the  reports 
of  numerous  special  committees  of  industrial  as  well  as  scientific 
societies  that  have  been  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  feasibility  of 
introducing  the  metric  system  of  weights  and  measures  into  the 
United  States. 
Among  the  reports  that  are  of  special  interest  in  this  connection 
the  writer  would  like  to  call  particular  attention  to  one  recently 
made  to  the  Franklin  Institute,  Philadelphia. 
This  Institute  began  its  career  in  1826,  and  has  always  taken  an 
active  part  in  the  development  and  advancement  of  anything  per- 
taining to  manufactures  and  the  mechanic  arts.  The  members  of 
the  Institute  have  contributed  materially  toward  advancing  manu- 
factures along  rational  and  scientific  lines  by  contributing  at  the 
meetings  of  the  Institute  or  through  the  columns  of  its  journal  such 
information,  gathered  from  practical  experience,  as  would  be  of  use 
to  others  in  overcoming  problems  and  difficulties  that  might  arise. 
In  this  respect,  the  Franklin  Institute  has  practically  revolutionized 
the  long-cherished  belief,  that  the  experiences  of  a  manufacturer  are 
to  be  used  only  for  his  individual  benefit  and  not  for  the  common 
good. 
The  nature  of  the  report,  and  the  action  that  was  taken  on  it, 
acquire  added  interest  from  the  fact  that  twenty-seven  years  ago  the 
same  Institute  adopted  the  majority  report  of  a  special  committee, 
appointed  for  the  same  purpose,  that  was  unfavorable  to  the  pro- 
posed introduction  of  the  metric  system  in  this  country. 
The  report,  accepted  at  that  time,  after  reviewing  the  history  of 
the  metric  system,  and  the  peculiar  conditions  under  which  it  was 
produced,  concluded  that  the  metric  system  was  not  based  on  scien- 
tific principles,  and  that  its  defects  outnumbered  its  advantages.  In 
addition  to  this  it  was  thought  that  the  adoption  of  the  metric 
system  would  have  a  tendency  to  estrange  us,  commercially,  from 
