2101. DECIMAL SYSTEM, Advantages of.—
The most easy ratio of multiplication and
division, is that by ten. Everyone knows the
facility of Decimal Arithmetic. Every one
remembers, that when learning Money-Arithmetic,
he used to be puzzled with adding the
farthings, taking out the fours and carrying
them on; adding the pence, taking out the
twelves and carrying them on; adding the
shillings, taking out the twenties and carrying
them on; but when he came to the
pounds, where he had only tens to carry forward,
it was easy and free from error. The
bulk of mankind are schoolboys through life.
These little perplexities are always great to
them. And even mathematical heads feel the
relief of an easier, substituted for a more difficult
process. Foreigners, too, who trade and
travel among us, will find a great facility in
understanding our coins and accounts from
this ratio of subdivision. Those who have
had occasion to convert the livres, sols and
deniers of the French; the gilders, stivers
and pfennings of the Dutch; the pounds, shillings,
pence, and farthings of these several
States, into each other, can judge how much
they would have been aided, had their several
subdivisions been in a decimal ratio. Certainly,
in all cases, where we are free to
choose between easy and difficult modes of
operation, it is most rational to choose the
easy. The Financier [Robert Morris], therefore,
in his report, well proposes that our
coins should be in decimal proportion to one
another.—
Notes on a Money Unit. Washington ed. i, 163.
Ford ed., iii, 447.
(1784)
