Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-11-21

pEaCtlCe. L FGIuenDHF, 100, ClaL from 1893
to 1895, the French had general revolu-
ton, in which they changed, not only the
government of their country, but they
endeavored to make a number of other
changes, such as abolishing the Christian
religion, and practically, the seventh day
as day of rest, for which they substi-
tuted week of ten days, and declared
every tenth day legal holiday. They also
divided the year into ten months. Why
should they have weeks of seven days
and years of twelve months, when man
has ten fingers? But they did not haye
the hardihOod to divide the day, and hour
aud circle into decimal divisions.
Ny last objection, which now urge, is
that the adoption of this system will not
only produce great canfusion and incon-
venience in its practical use, hut it will
necessitate the rewriting and re-printing
OF many of our mathematical works.
This objection alone, daily considered,
should have very great weight against the
proposed change. Nor does it appear to
me that our present system of fdenominate
numbers is SO difficult and cumbersome as
~ SDEcsOulSus
Prof. Allen gives the following exam
pies:
To reduce 15435I4 inches to miles, fur
longs, etc., he says it will take the pupil
| fifteen minutes to solve this example, and
| that he will require seventy-f1ve figures
to. do it. 1t might take some pupils so
long to solve it; butI solved it in less than
| three minutes-timed-aud used less than
sixty figures.
Z. He gives the following example {:
'SWhat is the weight of cubic rods, 3
cubic yards, Is cubic feet and 40 cubic
inches of coal? Given specific gravity of
coal 1.27, and supposed weight of one Gu
bic inch of water about 252.7453 grains, -
and adds, 'Eby our present system, it is
impossible to solve the problem accurate
ly."
Now respectfully dissent from the as
sertion of the impossibility of its solu-
ton by our present system; on the con-
trary, solved the problem in less than
twenty minutes, with at least as much ac-
curacy as it can be done by the metric
| system. 1t seems to me that the Prof
makes more confusion in the barrels
which he mentions than there is in the
gallons. 1t is well-known that the barrel
is not now regarded as definite measure,
it being equivalent only to the word cask,
All liquids, in large quantities being now
measured by the gallon, and that almost
exclusively by the wine (or water] gallon
of 23I cubic inches.
But, finally, we who are opposed to the
adoption of this inconvenient, impracti-
cal and unnecessary French innovation
may take some comfort in considering
that if it required all the power of the
French Government, for the space of 75
years, to compel its people to use this sys
TEN of weights and measures generally
and hardly succeeded then, we, in this
more free and enlightened nation, may
yet be spared from its inflictiOn a lons
time. The effort to introduce this change
into our arithmetics is akin to the imprac
tical and, think, foolish effort to change
our spelling-books, so as to spell all words
phonographically instead of analogically
If this could be effected, uniformity anC
simplicity of spelling would not be pro
duced until allshould agree to pronounc
alike. A. G. MARSHAL.
JEFFERsONvILLE, Oct. 16, 1878.