The Portland daily press., 1872-09-30
Down with the Compound Addition and
Reduction.

Down with the Compound Addition and
Reduction.
1t is now six or seven years, if we are not
mistaken, since Congress passed an act per-
hitting the use of the French system of
weights and measures in this country. Yet
not more than one person in ten knows what
the metric system is, when it is mentioned,
although there are men of great prominence
and influence who have long advocated max
ing its use compulsory, after short period
of probation. And we do not know that a
knowledge of it is gained in any of our Anne
can schools, notwithstanding the fact that its
adoption is acknowledged by all who have
given the subject any attention, to be merely
a question of time. Last Tuesday Con-
gress having in view the promotion of metro
logical reform, in which this country is repre-
scented by an able gentleman, met in Paris.
The result of this body's deliberations will
undoubtedly be substantially the oft-repeated
recommendation of the metric system.
The principal motive of the chief advocates
of the French weights and measures is the
promise it affords of the establishment of a
uniform neurology for all civilized nations.
The metric system, which has been used in
France for more than three quarters of cen
fury, has already been adopted in Germany,
Austria, Spain and almost the whole of con-
tinental Europe, while Great Britain passed
a permissive act sometime before Congress
passed the law to which we have refer
red. It will be seen that the prospect
of its universal adoption is most promising.
1t is work not unworthy of the attention of
even the philanthropist to remove the great
obstacle to free international intercourse in
terposed by the differences in the standards
of value and measure. The existing diversity
makes foreign books unintelligible to most
readers, while the statement of the weights
and measures of one nation in their equiva-
Tents according to the systems of other ma
tions is attended with great difficulty, and
even then absolute precision is often impos-
sible. Until recently the comparison of the
results of scientific investigation in different
countries was much impeded in. the same
way, but now men of all countries use the
French or metric system in all works of pure
science, which is another important step to-
ward the universal dominion of the metre.
But the browning glory of the metric sys-
tenn is that it is decimal system. The
golden age of the school boy has come the
moment it is adopted Reduction, compound
addition, duodecimals and all their frightful
congeners will be relegated to that region
where COLLINS, Puritanic Sundays and many
other of the terrors of childhood are already
banished. The difference between decimal
notation and the heterogeneous nota-
ton that is made use of in the weights
and measures of English-speaking people
may be readily appreciated by attempting a
calculation in English pounds, shillings and
pence, as most of us sometimes are obliged
to do, and then performing similar opera
ton in United States money. Giving us
democratic form of government was one
happy thought of our good old fathers; giving
us decimal system of coin values, instead
of adhering to the clumsy English system was
another. For the latter blessing we are in
debted to that widest-minded man of his
time, Thomas Jefferson, who reported the
existing plan of American coinage ten years
after he wrote the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. The notion of decimal system of
weights and measures, corresponding with
our coinage, is by no means a new one. So
long ago as 1926 John Quincy Adams drew
up paper opposing the Introduction of the
French system, on the ground of the invinci-
BILE popular prejudice against change in mat
tiers SO intimately connected with the
every day life of all the people.
But the leading scholars among our modern
statesmen are, we believe, ia vorable to the
metric system, Mr.. Sumner and Gen. Gar
field having given the matter special atten-
ton. There are those, however, who believe
that so radical change as the substitution of
the French metre for the English yard as the
unit of linear measure, and the basis of all
other measures and weights, could never be
adopted by the people, notwithstanding the
success of the experiment where there is far
less popular intelligence than in this country.
But at the same time they admit that some
decimal system must ultimately be adopted.
In 1867 Mr.. Bliss of Pittston, Maine, devised
a decimal system of weights and measures,
which, through the efforts of W. P. White
house, Esq, was approved in resolve of the
Legislature of that year and commended to
the favorable consideration of Congress. The
members from this State were instructed to
use thelr influence to secure its adoption in
stead OF the metric system, which had already
got great start; and it is due to those gen.
tlemen to say that they appear. one and ALL
to have treated the whole subject with pro-
found indifference. Mr.. Bliss's schema CON
templates taking the standard English ward as
the unit of measure, and dividing and multi
plying it decimally. This plan would obyi-
ate many of the difficulties attending the in
PRODUCTION of the metre, but uniformity with
the systems of other nations would be sacri-
feed, thus leaving the whole work to be done
over again at some future time. Between
three and four hundred millions of people now
have the metric system in daily use, and they,
OF course, will not now drop the metre and
adopt the yard.
what Is the metric system then? A few
words will serve to give some idea of it, for its
exquisite simplicity is among its most conspic-
uous merits. The metre, the standard Of lin
ear measure, Is one ten-millionth of the dis
lance from the equator to the pole, the ouad-
The metre is equivalent to about 80. 27 Enol;sb
inches. The lower denominations are ind;ca.