8106. STANDARD, Decimal system.—
Is it in contemplation with the House of Representatives
to * * * arrange * * * our measures
and weights [the same as the coinage] in a decimal ratio? The facility which this would
introduce into the vulgar arithmetic would, unquestionably,
be soon and sensibly felt by the
whole mass of the people, who would thereby
be enabled to compute for themselves whatever
they should have occasion to buy, to sell, or to
measure, which the present complicated and dif
ficult ratios place beyond their computation
for the most part.—
Coinage, Weights and Measures Report. Washington ed. vii, 477.
(July. 1790)