The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1877-06-21

pass the first section which reads: The weights and
measures received from the United States by the
State University shall be placed in charge Of the Sec
retary of State and shall be and remain and be used
the sole authorized public standard of weights and
measures.- There would seem to he desire to write
Esto pes;pefua this statute; not only seek to
'hcdge in the steady, moving thought toward the
metric system of reights aud pseasxres, system
which, in its of lengths, Of surfaces, of vol
umes solids, of capacity and of weights, not to
speak of values times and angles arcs is the dec
mal system, founded in nature, and susceptible Of
being made UNIVERSAL adopted in France, Spain, Por
tugal Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Germany,
Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Mexico, Bra
z and in most of the South American States in Qua
temala, San Salvador, and British India; but ALSO
iely Huufy act of Congress of 1866, entitled .an
act to authorize the use of the metric system of
weights and measures its enaeting clause and first
section reading "Be it enacted by the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United States of
America, in Congress assembled, that from and after
the passage of this act it shall be lawful throughout
the United States of America to employ the weights
and measures of ths Metric SYSTEM and no contract
dealing, pleading in any court, shall be deemed
invalid liable to objection, because the weights
measures expressed referred therein weights
or measures of the meteric system"
of extensive erudtion fitted by nature and education
to be Minister Penipotentiary to the Spanish Court
at Madrid lent his zeal and energy this movement
prior to its enactment, and largely instrumental
in securing its passage. 1t received the favor of
Presidents Madison, Jefferson and the younger Adj
ans Mr.. Adams saying: considered merely as
labOr-saving machine, it is a new power offered to
man incomparably greater than that which he has
acquired by the new agency which he has given to
steam.- Massachusetts, lamented and honored Sum-
ner said The rising generation will embrace it, and
ever afterward number it among the choicest posses
sions Of advanced civilization. A system of
weights and measures born of philosophy rather than
of chance, is what seek To this end old sys-
TENS must be abandoned chance system cannot
be universal Science is universal Therefore, what
is produced by science may find home everywhere.
The metric terms Ineligible in all languages.
They are, in their nature, common or cosmopolitan,
and in all countries the name instantly suggests the
measure with exquisite precision" 1t is said that
moro than one hundred foot measures, each differing
from the other in length, have been in in Europe,
which might not be very surprising when We found
in the older arithmetics that barley were the
standards Of linear measure it being '3barley eorns
make l inch; I2 inches foot" 1t was quite possi-
bic for grains of barley to vary in their length. To
the intelligent kansan, who would put his State in
the van he keeps along abreast of the age the
actment of laws that destitute of form and comli
that antagonize the better thought of times
there comes an almost involuntary prompting to
claim, How long must the Rip Van Wrinkles expert
ence heightened enjoyment, as they exclam 'Eure-
ka,' in seeking to saddle upon the people of every
organized County in this State expense that it is
possible may be fraught with intellectually more evil
than good; and which, if for arguments sake, may
be, in some sense, beneicence, necessarily be
limited in its workings, and have tendency to un-
duly postpone the introduction of a system which, as
intelligently and eonseienously examined through.
out Chrstendem, but meet with the highest favor
and be found to be infinitely preferable to the one
it would supplant that ''the disuetude which abrogat
ed the law, that custom had before established
would be so wenigh universally concurred in as to
cause surprise that 'the powers that be- would seek
to hold us to the thought and customs of the media
val ages for all time How painfully this contrasts
with monarchieal Germany, which, lesalizins the
Metric System in 1868 in four years thereafter the
influence of its schools, through the efforts of the
State Educational Department, prepared its people
for the appreciation and reception of the Metric Sys
tem from which inducements could be offered that
would cause them to recede therefrom,