The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1885.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 7483, 24 February 1885, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1885.

There is nothing like ambition —just as there is nothing like leather. This is true in two ways. If the ambition of a man be high, and his capacity equals it, then there is nothing like his ambition; for people to admire. In like manner, if his ambition is great and the means at his command are small, then there is nothing like his ambition ; for making people laugh. The ambition of the Educational Institute of Canterbury is very high. It has undertaken to sweep away the present system of weights and measures, and to establish the metric system in its place. This is truly great. There is nothing in this part of the world like it—whether for admiration or the other thing it is not for us to say. There is, likewise, nothing like the reason for this greatness of ambition. The Institute has a certain amount of sympathy and respect for the scientific world in which the metric system is exclusively used. But the great, the real, the all-powerful reason why we are to have the metric system is that when we have it, the teaching of arithmetic will be a much simpler thing than it is now. So it appears that the scientific world is, after all, very well in its way ; but the world which is of real importance, is the world of the teachers and the taught. It is a beautiful thing, in these days of universal learning by process of cram, to see those who are crammers by compulsion (quite against their better judgment) earnestly recommending the simplification of one of the educational processes. It shows a consideration for the brains of youth, which cannot be sufficiently commended. There was one gentleman who opposed the conclusions of the Institute. Though solitary, he even scoffed. But scoffing and opposition always wait on the footsteps of the progress which they are powerless to arrest. If the world —the work-a-day world, we mean, in which the business

,of life is clone, where the bustling, moving crowd is to be seen, buying, selling, haggling, elbowing, trampling —if this world were beginning again, it would be a grand opportunity to discuss the merits of the rival systems, the metric of the French and of the Continentals, against those of the system which prevails in the British Empire, the United States and the numerous people who do business with them. Then we might have most profitable debates on the superiority of the metre to the yard, or of the millimetre to the inch, or of the kilogramme to the pound. The superior merit of simplicity of calculation would 'be given to the metric systems unhesitatingly. But if in this supposed condition of a new world of machinery and commerce just about to be launched, the presence of practical people might be considered admissible, it is doubtful whether the system of England and America would not carry the clay for greater convenience, which is a greater benefit to mankind than even simplicity of calculation. After all, how many people one meets in the world have ever to make any calculation of any kind, worthy of the name of calculation, about weights and measures? And for tha people who have, the difference to them in results obtained or time required to obtain them, between the use of one system and the other, is like the proverbial difference between the two methods of stating the half-dozen. The metre, many authorities contend, is too large, and the millimetre is too small; feet and inches make more convenient units, as very many allow. But the world has -got past the stage of just going to begin. It is no doubt very beautiful to know that the weight of a cubic decimetre of distilled water at a temperature of 39 T degrees of Fahrenheit is equal to a kilogramme, which is two and twotenths of our pound. Even more consoling to the lover of theoretical perfection is it to discover that the metre, being a measurable quadrant of the earth’s surface, is a perfect guarantee of absolute accuracy of measurement.' But the joy which these facts inspire is, in this practical age, dimmed at the outset, by the fact, Ist, that accuracy is not less in England and America than among the owners of the scientifically accurate system, and 2nd, that, to use the words of a distinguished authority; “the most skilled workmen are not yet able to make two litres of water weigh alike to the utmost point of accuracy, and the cubical litre is not used, but is converted into a circular or cylindrical vessel with all the trouble of the problem of squaring the circle.” We recommend this result of the simpler system to the advocates of simplicity for purposes of calculation. But whether or not the joy inspired by the two great facts of the metric system be blasted at the outset, the world is debarred from following up its joy by any , practical interest. England, America, and the machine shops of Russia have adopted the system which has for its basis the yard, with its subdivisions of the foot and the inch; all the screws and nuts in the workshops of the whole German Empire are cut to the English inch ; all the timber that comes out of the Baltic is measured by the same unit of measurement, and all Swedish iron is so rolled. Two hundred and ten millions of people use bolts and nuts of the size made in England. The disorganisation caused by a change in this item alone would he incalculable. Again, to quote our authority, “The English engineer knows, in these days of iron, when he uses shapes of iron rolled of uniform section, that the tenth of their weight in pounds per yard gives him the area of the section, and this one admirable incident will long fix the desirability of the present unit of England and America.” Are the engineers who design for two hundred* millions not to be considered ? Are the millions of capital sunk in machinery, devised and made under the present system, for doing work according to its measurements, to be considered as dirt ? Is all this inconvenience to he faced because it is thought desirable to simplify the teaching of the third “R ? ” The probability is that the interests of the third “R ” will not prevail. The fact is that the third “ R ” must accommodate itself to the conditions ,of the universe. It certainly will never get the conditions of the universe altered to suit its convenience. As the world accepted the English meridian for the good of the majority, it is even possible that it may, for the same reason, one day accept the English inch.