Safe Book

Spurred by a deci­sion from the nine Common Market countries that after April 21, 1978, they would ac­cept no imports unless labeled in metric dimensions. Finally, on December 23, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, calling for volun­tary conversion to the metric system and establishing a U. S. Metric Board to coordinate that conversion.

Even though Congress and the President did not go so far as to require mandatory con­version, most observers see the changeover coming with in­creasing rapidity anyway. Officials and businessmen to whom I have talked give vary­ing estimates: some see a pre­dominantly metric United States by the early ’80′s. More pessimistic forecasts suggest 1990. But all agree we are moving fast on the metric road. Even without metric legis­lation we have already gone a considerable distance down that road. Scientists use metric measurements exclusively. So do many of our engineers. Most of us are familiar with 35-millimeter cameras and film, 500-milligram vitamin pills, skis labeled in centimeters, hypodermics measured in cubic centimeters (the same as milli­liters), and cars with engine displacement stated in liters. The airlines have long weighed our luggage in kilograms on overseas flights. We have watched races in the Olympic games—all in metric.

In at least 14 states some road signs show both mile and kilometer distances or speed limits. The same is now true of signs in some national parks. A few months ago the Department of Transportation proposed that all speed-limit signs be changed to metric be­ginning in July 1978. Coca-Cola, 7-Up, Pepsi-Cola, Dr Pepper, and Shasta are now marketed in liter containers. By the end of 1979, all wines and spirits must be bottled in metric sizes. The familiar fifth will become 750 milliliters—about one percent less. Federal agencies increas­ingly use metric measurements. The Department of Agriculture publishes crop yields and grain shipments in metric tons. All NASA reports give metric, with customary figures added. The Patent and Trademark Office now requires that patent appli­cations include metric dimen­sions of items.

Of the top 1,000 major man­ufacturing and industrial con­cerns in the United States, more than 60 percent are estimated to be metric or in transition. All four major motor com­panies are converting. Ford began ten years ago and pio­neered with the designing of the metric Pinto engine. Gen­eral Motors followed in 1975 with the largely metric Che­vette. Since 1973, GM has de­signed all new parts in metric. Has conversion posed an onerous burden on industry? I asked this question of a number of industry representatives. Their answer is uniformly no. “The worry is greatly over­stressed,” says P. E. Burke of American Motors. “It turns out to be a myth that it would cost enormous sums.” Everett Baugh of General Motors says, “Going metric in the Chevette caused no more than a ripple.”

And George Nassauer of Procter and Gamble puts it even more succinctly: “Going metric is no big deal!” Perhaps not for business and industry. But how will it affect ordinary people, who now have to learn to think in a different measurement language? For youngsters, at least, it is no problem. The other day my 9-year-old granddaughter, who is excited about spending her spring break in an Amsterdam apartment, was describing her latest find. “It’s just about a centi­meter long,” she said. The metric system will hold no terrors for her. Like most children in the U. S., she is learning metric measurements in school. Some school systems, in fact, are phasing out instruc­tion in customary units. Some states now require that all new textbooks use the metric system exclusively.

Canterbury does not end at the Precincts wall. Nor does anyone in that enchanted world wish it did. As its civic officials rightly insist, Canterbury town would be there any­way. Its location on what is still a major route from Europe to central England would assure that.

But Canterbury was and is a pilgrim town. Its two-and-a-half-million annual visitors are pilgrims of a sort. Like their predecessors of Chaucer’s day they pray in the cathedral, buy souvenirs in the shops, and explore the winding ways. I followed this time-honored pattern with Frank Higenbottam, a gentle, warmhearted man, full of wit and wisdom, who had just retired from 35 years as chief of the city library.

We wandered around West Gate, a twin-towered entry through the western wall of the town where buses came in with millimeters to spare. Near there the River Stour splits in two to flow around and through the town, and peaceful old buildings of hand-knapped flint stand along its banks.

The overhanging houses seem too pictur­esquely timbered and plastered to be real, but they are as real as they were when Charles Dickens saw and wrote of them, and they were old then. Some were homes of Walloons and Huguenots who brought weaving to the city in the 16th and 17th centuries, when they sought sanctuary from religious persecution in their own countries. Outside the walls modest little Saint Martin’s broods away the centuries among gnarled yew trees; the least pretentious and, at some 1,400 years, probably the oldest church in all England.

Cathedral Casts a Special Spell

Frank drove to his snug home on the edge of town. Furniture bulked large and cushiony in the little rooms, but the place held a sense of serenity as dwellings of kind and happy folk often do. His wife, Phyll, made beautiful sandwiches and put me at ease with her self­less good nature. Frank proudly displayed his new study, built out back, full of books and windows and pleasant pipe smells.

“I’m well set up here,” he said. “Quiet. No comings and goings. Down across the mead­ow there is the Stour, where we bathe in the summer and fish too. Oh my, yes. Big sea trout come up here. And if I’m lonely I’ve only got to go down to the corner. That’s my pub there, and there’ll be a few of the old boys for a pint or a game or a natter. Or all three. You know, really, a man can’t ask for much more, can he?”

No, he can’t. At a certain time in any hu­man being’s life, serenity becomes the most precious of conditions. And, just as Frank’s cozy home gives him that priceless satisfac­tion of spirit, so does Christ Church bestow its special blessing on those who come to it in sadness or despair.

The cathedral is old and worn, some of its once-glorious windows now blind and gray. It is imperfect, for the mind of man, whose creative genius brought it into being, is im­perfect. But it is all the more lovable for that. It is not soul-chilling in superhuman size and symmetry, but warm, attempting the best of beauty. It is forever a medieval cathedral. And the medieval cathedral is the greatest communal work of art that ever existed, be­cause it is the most inspired.

Canterbury Cathedral was made and re­made to the glory of God by inspired men. The old rain-melted walls still stand in their miraculous configuration, a heart-lifting song in stone for those who will listen—who try to hear. Those who do come swiftly and with an intensity that is overwhelming to the soul-stirring realization that God hears too—that “Surely the Lord is in this place.”