Samuel Augustus Barnett

“ Can the English and American peoples—the two most commercial peoples on the globe—be content, on the one hand, with permanent isolation, founded on inferiority? or, on the other, can they ask mankind to accept their system, forsooth, as worthy of universal use? Will England, for example, ask America to return to £ s. d. and qrs.? Or America, for very shame, present her compound reduction tables for the admiration and universal adoption of all nations?
Let not the friends of metric reform be deceived with vain hopes. ”

“ In our present problem the human conditions furnish guiding principles—the great salient points of our Pacific Railway—more stubborn than Nature itself. The system is for man—not man for the system; and, if the two do not tally, it must yield, not he!
What modifications of the metric system are needed to fit it for common use?
Roughly, directness and simplicity. In aiming at these we should study actual human experience. The currency system of America furnishes invaluable guidance. One of its chief lessons is, that men like not many denominations. ”

“ There are two sets of conditions to be fulfilled which may be distinguished as the natural and the human conditions of the problem. The difficulty is not to be found in the non-fulfillment of the former; as has already been remarked, the natural conditions have been well met by Science. But, after all the successful work laboriously done upon these—chiefly in the verification of the units—the hardest part of the problem yet remains, viz., such an adaptation of the system to mankind that the peoples to be benefitted shall adopt and use it in the daily business of life. ”

“ Taking pains to explain the modifications of meaning, he retained ancient terms, knowing how bewildered men become with a strange vocabulary, especially when, as in the metric nomenclature, a great batch of new words is thrown upon them at once—long and strange, and slow to yield their meaning. ”

“ With all its admitted merits, the activity of its friends, and the co-operation of governments, the metric system makes no headway among the masses of mankind. As yet but a barren triumph has been achieved ”

“ To adapt the system to man requires a different sort of observation from theirs, for which there are no instruments, but only the patient observation of the ways of this fastidious creature. The huge inertia of this ponderous mass of humanity, as results show, is yet to be overcome. Until this adaptation to man is complete, the problem is not solved. ”

“ Even natural units need translation, and the artificial units we devise might be content to get on a footing with natural ones. How small a purpose, indeed, would be served if the names of the measures were the same, but of the numbers not the same, nor of the things measured! Such are some, by no means all, of the incurable faults and defects of the metric nomenclature.
The obstacles to metric reform have been chiefly artificial. Like little David in Saul's armor, the system has been weighed down with superfluities. ”

“ Seriously, it were easier for the learned to acquire a nomenclature founded on Hottentot and Sanskrit, dressed off in Kamchatkan forms, than for the unlearned to acquire one in Latin and Greek with French forms; the learned have some familiarity in dealing with new languages to start with. The metric words are ferœ naturæ to all people, and will not domesticate. To the common people they are simply outlandish, and "neither have the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man." ”

“ No second denomination is essential in any table. Any weight, for example, can be expressed in pounds and decimals of a pound, without reference to other units. The largest quantities can be so expressed, and the smallest. In currency we express a national debt reaching to billions in the selfsame unit which is used for small daily transactions, say in dollars or in francs. This shows the unlimited capacity of number for exact expression without any table of denominations at all. ”

“ The transition to the new system to involve the least practicable loss of familiarity—either with familiar objects or familiar names.
These modifications adapt the metric system to the needful human conditions. Accepting its solutions of the natural conditions, they conserve all that is really valuable, and reject only what is cumbrous. The metric nomenclature is quite as unphilosophical as the English scales; both are fit only for decent burial. The real desideratum is to reduce to a minimum the difficulty of introducing the new units. ”

“ Indeed, in England and America it may safely be said that a single denomination in each table would be better than the present method with its irregularity and confusion, better for mental grasp of the quantity expressed, and better for calculation. ”

“ It is unfortunate that in the metrical household every family has the same Christian names. We can imagine some wag proposing middle names just to break up the monotony. When you hear deci, your active mind, always anticipating, calls up a member of each family, and you think of deci-gramme, deci-metre, deci-arc, deci-stere, and deci-litre. ”

“ The system should carry no dead weight. Starting with no superfluous units, these units need—
Names.—And here comes in the process of "conscious word-making," the conditions of which have only recently been much studied. The department of science which qualifies men to suggest suitable names or principles for their selection is not physical but linguistic. ”

“ Can the transition be better effected than on the foregoing principles?
This ponderous and scattered human family—a huge class of grown pupils, not gathered into school-room, nor used to formal instruction—complains of its lessons; it begs for a less task. ”

“ A clearer idea is obtained by the expression 13,518.6 lbs. than by its equivalent in numerous denominations, 6 tons, 13 cwt., 3 qrs., 17 lbs., 11 oz., 5.6 drachms.
We would not be understood to limit a system to one denomination, or even to two. Yet two well-chosen units in each table, as compared with the present English system, would be a decided improvement. Suppose we had pounds and pound cents, yards and yard cents, etc., corresponding with the dollars and cents of currency; they would furnish incomparably superior advantages to the existing methods. ”

“ Whitney, whose works exhibit great good sense and clear-headedness as well as ample learning, uses such expressions as these, showing the habits of mankind in the formation of words, "Stretch a familiar name to cover it;" ”