Dr. To cost in school taxes of keeping 2 1/2 millions of children in school 2/3 year. $50,000,000 To cost to parents for supporting 1 1/2 millions children 2/3 year............. 100,000,000 To loss of productive power of 1 1/2 millions youth for 2/3 year ............. 75,000,000 To loss of earning power by having children driven out of school by difficulties of arithmetic as now taught .................................... 25,000,000 To loss of time in making arithmetical calculations by men in trade, industries and manufactures.......................... 30,000,000 To extra weighing and measuring instruments needed for sundry tables....... 10,000,000 To loss of time in making cross reductions to and from our system and metric system .............................. 5,000,000 To loss of profit from foreign trade because our goods are not in metric units ..................................... 20,000,000 ------------ Total annual loss ................. $315,000,000 Commenting for a moment on the credit side of the above ledger account, it can be said that recent psychology shows conclusively that training in common fractions and weights and measures can not be of much practical help as so-called culture, or training for learning other things, unless those other things are closely related to them, and there are not many things in life so related to them once we had dropped our present weights and measures. It may be complained that the expense of changing to the new system is not taken account of in the above table. The reason is that that expense would occur once for all. The above table deals with the ANNUAL cost of our present medieval system. One powerful reason for the adoption of the metric system different in character from the others is the ease of cheating by the old system. In the past the people have been unmercifully abused through short weights and measures. Many of the states have taken this matter up latterly and prosecuted merchants right and left. Nine tenths of this trouble would disappear with the new system in use.