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I Atii^ net ,i1-. 3

THE

REFORM

OF THE

CALENDAR

ALEXANDER PHILIP

M.A., LL.B., F.R.S. Edin.

LONDON
KEG AN PAUL, TRENCH, TRtFBNER, & CO., LTD,

BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.G.
NEW YORK : E. P. UUTTON & CO.

1914

A^iXn. no*i.^ 'h^

JUL 20 1914

A PERPETUAL CALENDAR.

1910 or any sntiseqneiit year.

I. New Year's Day.

January. February. MarcL ApriL /lay. June.

1 S. 1 Tu. 1 Th. I S. I Tu. 1 Th.

2 M. 2 W. 2 F. 2 M. 2 W. 2 F.

3 Tu. 3 Th. 3 Sat. 3 Tu. 3 Th. 3 Sat.

4 W. 4 F. 4 S. 4 W. 4 F. 4 S.

5 Th. 5 Sat. 5 M. 5 Th. 5 Sat. 5 M.

6 F. 6 S. 6 Tu. 6 F. 6 S. 6 Tu.

7 Sat. 7 M. 7 W. 7 Sat. 7 M. 7 W.

8 S. 8 Tu. 8 Th. 8 S. 8 Tu. 8 Th.

9 M. 9 W. 9 F. . 9 M. 9 W. 9 F.

10 Tu. 10 Th. 10 Sat. 10 Tu. 10 Th. 10 Sat.

11 W. 11 F. 11 S. 11 W. II F. lis.

12 Th. 12 Sat. 12 M. 12 Th. 12 Sat. 12 M.

13 F. 13 S. 13 Tu. 13 F. 13 S. 13 Tu.

14 Sat. 14 M. 14 W. 14 Sat. 14 M. 14 W.

15 S. 15 Tu. 15 Th. 15 S. 15 Tu. 15 Th.

16 M. 16 W. 16 F. 16 M. 16 W. 16 F.

17 Tu. 17 Th. 17 Sat. 17 Tu. 17 Th. 17 Sat.

18 W. 18 F. 18 S. 18 W. 18 F. 18 S.

19 Th. 19 Sat. 19 M. 19 Th. 19 Sat. 19 M.

20 F. 20 S. 20 Tu. 20 F. 20 S. 20 Tu.

21 Sat. 21 M. 21 W. 21 Sat. 21 M. 21 W.

22 S. 22 Tu. 22 Th. 22 S. 22 Tu. 22 Th.

23 M. 23 W. 23 F. 23 M. 23 W. 23 F.

24 Tu. 24 Th. 24 Sat. 24 Tu. 24 Th. 24 Sat.

25 W. 25 F. 25 S. 25 W. 25 F. 25 S.

26 Th. 26 Sat. 26 M. 26 Th. 26 Sat. 26 M.

27 F. 27 S. 27 Tu. 27 F. 27 S. 27 Tu.

28 Sat. 28 M. 28 W. 28 Sat. 28 M. 28 W.

29 S. 29 Tu. 29 Th. 29 S. 29 Tu. 29 Th.

30 M. 30 W. 30 F. 30 M. 30 W. 30 F.

31 Sat. 31 Sat

Leap Day (in Leap Years).

Jnly. kaguaL September. October. November. December

1 S. 1 Tu. 1 Th. IS. I Tu. I TL

2 M. 2 W. 2 F. 2 M. 2 W. 2 F.

3 Tu. 3 Th. 3 Sat. 3 Tu. 3 Th. 3 Sat.

4 W. 4 F. 4 S. 4 W. 4 F. 4 S.

5 Th. 5 Sat. 5 M. 5 Th. 5 Sat. 5 M.

6 F. 6 S. 6 Tu. 6 F. 6 S. 6 Tu.

7 Sat. 7 M. 7 W. 7 Sat. 7 M. 7 W.

8 S. 8 Tu. 8 Th. 8 S. 8 Tu. 8 Th.

9 M. 9 W. 9 F. 9 M.. 9 W. 9 F.

10 Tu. 10 Th. 10 Sat. 10 Tu. 10 Th. 10 Sat.

11 W. 11 F. lis. 11 W. 11 F. IIS.

12 Th. 12 Sat. 12 M. 12 Th. 12 Sat. 12 M.

13 F. 13 S. 13 Tu. 13 F. 13 S. 13 Tu.

14 Sat. 14 M. 14 W. 14 Sat. 14 M. 14 W.

15 S. 15 Tu. 15 Th. 15 S. 15 Tu. 15 Th.

16 M. 16 W. 16 F. 16 M. 16 W. 16 F.

17 Tu. 17 Th. 17 Sat. 17 Tu. 17 Th. 17 Sat

18 W. 18 F. 18 S. 18 W. 18 F. 18 S.

19 Th. 19 Sat. 19 M. 19 Th. 19 Sat. 19 M.

20 F. 20 S. 20 Tu. 20 F. 20 S. 20 Tu.

21 Sat. 21 M. 21 W. 21 Sat. 21 M. 21 W.

22 S. 22 Tu. 22 Th. 22 S. 22 Tu. 22 Th.

23 M. 23 W. 23 F. 23 M. 23 W. 23 F.

24 Tu. 24 Th. 24 Sat. 24 Tu. 24 Th. 24 Sat.

25 W. 25 F. 25 S. 25 W. 25 F. 25 S.

26 Th. 26 Sat. 26 M. 26 Th. 26 Sat. 26 M.

27 F. 27 S. 27 Tu. 27 F. 27 S. 27 Tu.

28 Sat. 28 M. 28 W. 28 Sat. 28 M. 28 W.

29 S. 29 Tu. 29 Th. 29 S. 29 Tu. 29 Th.

30 M. 30 W. 30 F. 30 M. 30 W. 30 F.

31 Sat. 31 Sat.

Copyrighted 16th January, 1908, by

ALEXANDER PHILIP, LL.B.,
Brechin.

THE REFORM OF
THE CALENDAR

A<^X^ \^c>^.\ "h^

JUL 20 1914

MICROFILMED
AT HARVARD

PREFACE

It was reported some time ago that a sagacious
student of human nature had intimated bv
advertisement in the newspapers that on the
day following — and on that day only — he would
be found on London Bridge during certain
specified hours with a bag of sovereigns in his
hand, which he would be prepared to distribute
one by one to whomsoever might make applica-
tion. He kept his word. For several hours
on the day named he took his stand upon the
Bridge. Many thousands of persons passed
by him. When the time was up he returned
home with the same number of sovereigns
with which he had set out in the morning.
No one had believed him. No one was willing
to seem so credulous as to put his promise to
the test.

Somewhat similar has been the experience of
those who a few years ago began to urge the
advantages of a more rational calendar. When
the present writer first brought forward his

Proposal for a Simplified Calendar, in many in-
stances it was found that politicians, economists,
commercial men, lawyers, and scientists declined
even to discuss it or to permit a discussion at
the meetings of their societies or chambers.
An astronomer with a creditable record of
observatory work, in a letter to the newspapers,
spoke of '* Flat-earthists, Ptolemaists, Astrol-
ogers, Circle-squarers, Pyramid-worshippers,
Calendar Reformers and other purveyors of
useless novelties."

The dislike and suspicion which the idea
at first encountered seem already ridiculous.
But these thing's are not without their value.
They are the proper prognostics of progress.
They are the protest which the routine mind
naturally raises against real reform. Of all
things a change in the calendar seemed most
obviously to threaten the ritual of routine.
The resultant discussions have, however, shown
that a reform beneficial to all and injurious to
none can be very simply accomplished.

And so, to-day, the question is further for-
ward. The International Congress of Chambers
of Commerce has twice unanimously declared
for the reform. Other public bodies have
followed. The International Congress of

Scientific Academies has appointed a Com-
mittee to investigate it. The Church of Rome
and the Church of England have done the
same.

To summarise the work accomplished and
to point out the practical conclusion is the aim
of the following" essay.

If the man with the sovereigns showed a
shrewd understanding of human nature in
venturing his visit to London Bridge, his
sagacity was equally evident in his determina-
tion not to repeat the experiment. When the
public realise the advantages which are so
easily available by a simplification of the
calendar, it is not improbable that they may
seek to seize them with a rush. It is there-
fore desirable that the practical results of the
inquiry and discussion which have taken place
should be conveniently accessible to all.

The writer would like to express generally
his thanks for much kind assistance received
from time to time from many quarters too
numerous to specify, but he cannot omit a
special acknowledgment of the very kind help
and far-seeing advice ever readily afforded
him by Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S.

The cause of Calendar Reform is also largely

Xll

indebted to the able advocacy of M. Canon
Legrand, Belgium; M. G. S. de Clerq, Haarlem;
Dr W. Koppen, Hamburg*; Sir Hugh Bell,
Northallerton; Dr Biisching, Halle; M. Armand
Baar, Li6ge; Professor Grosclaude, Geneva;
M. Georg, Geneva ; Lord Desborough, and
many others.

Xmas 191 3.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

1. OF PROGRESS SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL . I

2. OF THE EFFECTS OF AN UNSTABLE CALENDAR . 8

3. FURTHER INCONVENIENCES CAUSED BY OUR

UNSTABLE CALENDAR . . . .15

4. OF PERPETUAL CALENDARS IN THE PAST 20

5. OF THE OTHER DEFECTS OF OUR CALENDAR . 24

6. OF THE INDIRECT CONSEQUENCES THEREOF . 29

7. OF THE ESSENTIALS OF THE CALENDAR. . 34

8. OF THE CONVENTIONAL DIVISIONS OF TIME . 4I

9. THE REFORM OF THE CALENDAR . . . 49

10. PROPOSALS FOR REFORM . . .54

11. GENERAL OBJECTIONS TO THE SIMPLIFICATION

OF THE CALENDAR ANSWERED . . 64

12. OBJECTIONS TO THE INTERFERENCE WITH THE

SUCCESSION OF WEEK DAYS . . - ^7

13. PROPOSALS FOR THE READJUSTMENT OF THE

MONTHLY CALENDAR. (l) WEEK- MULTIPLES 78

14. (2) SYMMETRICAL MONTHS . 90

15. A PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT . 99

16. THE DATE OF EASTER . . . . IO7

17. A RHYTHMIC YEAR . . . I16
APPENDIX: A CALENDAR REFORM BILL . . I23
INDEX . . .126

xiii

THE REFORM OF THE

CALENDAR

CHAPTER I
Of Progress Scientific and Social

Every intelligent person is aware of the remark-
able and continuous progress which is taking
place in scientific knowledge and in the applica-
tion of science to the arts. The constant im-
provement in the conditions of civilised life in
modern times bears unceasing testimony to the
reality of this progress. Few of us are so
young or so unobservant as not to have had
ample evidence of the fact, even within the
time covered by our own personal recollec-
tions. And if we extend our consideration
over a longer period, we find only a stronger
confirmation.

We visit an engineering museum, and we see
there a model of Stephenson's first locomotive,

along with a succession of subsequent designs,
down to the magnificent engines of to-day.
The same thing occurs if we examine an ex-
hibition of electrical apparatus, of ships, of
motor-cars, or indeed of any sort of scientific
or mechanical contrivance designed for the
service of mankind.

But when we turn to the arrangements pro-
vided for the regulation of human action, a
strange contrast presents itself. If we compare
a statute or Act of Parliament of a hundred
years ago with one passed last session, not
only do we find no such improvement in its
conception or draughtsmanship, but the com-
parison is, if anything, unfavourable to the more
recent production. The organisation of labour,
or of the traffic of our streets, the arrangements
of business in Parliament, in the Law Courts,
or in the Stock Exchange, reveal no such
evident signs of steady and constant improve-
ment. No doubt there are many changes, and
more than enough of novelties and alterations,
but of a general, orderly, continuous progress
there is really no appearance.

Take, for example, a railway. Compare, as
we have done, the locomotive of sixty years ago
with the locomotive of to-day ; the evidence of

improvement is beyond question. Compare,
again, the railway time-tables of that period
with those of the month now current. No
doubt the speed of trains is accelerated, the
quantity of traffic is enormously increased, but
in the smooth working and simplicity of traffic
arrangements there is, we fear, very little im-
provement, — certainly no indication of any such
steady, continuous progress as we are accustomed
to expect in connection with mechanical con-
trivances. Or, again, consider the movements
of the community during the holiday season in
the month of July, and let anyone honestly
say whether order, organisation, and method
are more or less conspicuous as the years roll
on. Take, again, the question of unemploy-
ment, about which we do not hear much at the
moment, but which was very much in evidence
only a few years ago. One of the loudest of
the quack prescriber§ for the evils of unemploy-
ment stumbled upon what we believe to be an
obvious truth, when he declared not long ago
that the main cause of unemployment was
** irregular employment.'' There is indeed
little doubt that the main cause of the in-
dustrial unrest, which weighs like a night-
mare on modern life, is just this irregularity in

the employment and occupations of the vast
majority of men. And this irreg-ularity is be-
coming* not less but greater as time goes on.

In Scotland, where these lines are written,
the Health Insurance Act, the Shop Hours'
Act, the House-letting Act are now in full
operation. What has the effect been of all
these various efforts at social amelioration ?
In no party spirit we reply that, whilst none
may be without its good points, one un-
doubted result has been to make the confusion
of our social conditions a good deal worse
confounded.

It is to the advance of scientific knowledge and
its applications that the remarkable amelioration
of the conditions of civilised life during the last
century or so is due. And the very vastness
and universality of this improvement usually
blinds us to the fact that it has not extended
itself to the regulation and organisation of
human activity. Yet the ever-growing unrest
and discontentment, which are seething in all
ranks of society, bear conclusive testimony to
the fact that there is something sadly un-
satisfying and far amiss in the present condi-
tion even of the most civilised states.

Now what is the cause of this strange

contrast? To answer this immensely im-
portant question, let us ask for a moment
what are the conditions which have rendered
scientific and mechanical progress possible?

We reply that such progress is possible
because it is cumulative. The modern loco-
motive, the modern ** Cunarder," the modern
motor - car or telephone exchange have not
leaped fully equipped from the brain of the
inventor. On the contrary, their improvement
has been a gradual and continuous process.
In the case of the locomotive, starting with
Stephenson's ** Rocket," its defects were noticed,
improvements one by one were tried and
tested, the good were retained, the defective
were discarded, and in this way the engineer ,
has arrived at the locomotive of to-day. And
only because he could proceed thus was the
improvement possible.

The remark is of universal application. In
short, the course of scientific progress resembles
the erection of a building. Just as St Paul's
Cathedral arose surely and gradually, as one
row of stones was laid upon another, so has
the course of mechanical improvement gone
on its way.

But such gradual building is only possible

upon a fixed and steady foundation. If an
earthquake were annually to shake to the
ground all the work of the preceding year,
obviously neither St Paul's Cathedral nor any
other similar edifice could ever have been
reared. And in like manner a basis of fixed
data is the essential prerequisite of scientific
and mechanical advancement. Suppose, for
example, that by some strange convention the
meaning of the figures we employ in numerical
notation were to change every year; suppose
the figure which this year represents 2 were
next year to mean 3, next year 4, and so on ;
suppose, again, that our weights and measures
were to fluctuate in a similar manner — that
a yard which this year meant 36 inches were
next year to be 35, next year 34, and so on,
returning to its original signification only at
distant and irregular intervals, — then we affirm,
without fear of contradiction, that the whole
fabric of science and the mechanical arts could
never have been raised at all, and, so far as
these are concerned, we should in such circum-
stances have been compelled to rest content
to-day with the very simplest and most primi-
tive appliances.

Yet, strange as it may sound, such are the

conditions under which, in modern society,
human action is organised. For what is the
framework, the basal datum by which we
arrange our actions ? It is no other than the
scheme under which we arrange our time — in
one word, our Calendar.

CHAPTER II
Of the Effects of an Unstable Calendar

We have said that the disorganised state of
all social arrang-ements is ascribable to the
calendar. A little consideration will make
this clear. The dislocation of our calendrial
arrangements is due to two distinct causes.
These are, first, what we may call the incon-
gruity of the week ; secondly, the irregularity
in the lengths of the months, and the position
of the odd day in leap year. The disturbance
caused by the former of these causes is perhaps
the more obvious, and we shall therefore in the
first place refer principally to it.

The week formed no part originally of the
Julian Calendar. Its observance throughout
the Roman Empire appears to have been
enacted first in the reign of Theodosius, a most
Christian emperor who endeavoured in every
direction to undo the work of the Apostate.
Be that as it may, the arrangement of the week

now very largely dominates all the engage-
ments of civilised society. Unfortunately, as
everyone knows, the days of the week do not
stand in a constant relation with the other
elements of the calendar. A period of 52
weeks completes itself in 364 days. There is
thus a remainder over of one day in ordinary
years and two days in leap years. The relation
of week days to the monthly enumeration is
thus constantly fluctuating.

If every day of the week were alike suitable
for any engagement, this incongruity would be
of little consequence ; but we all know that this
is not so. Not only in the case of Sunday,
which is legally a dies non, is the constant
change in the calendar position of the week
days a cause of disturbance, but even in the
case of other week days we often find that it is
practically inconvenient to alter the day of the
week on which recurring appointments are
observed. Not infrequently when the avoid-
ance of a Sunday is the only object in view,
engagements are appointed for a definite day of
the month or for the next lawful day thereafter.
Where, however, it is desired to retain always
the same day of the week for particular engage-
ments, the usual expedient adopted is to fix

Table showing the seven different ways in
which the days of the week and the month

can correspond.

Tu.

Th.

6 •

such eng*ag*ements for the first, second, third,
fourth, or last Monday, Tuesday, or as the
case may be, of a particular month. We have
become so accustomed to these expedients that
we do not readily observe how they disturb
and dislocate our arrangements, and render
impossible any permanence or continuity in
our scheme of action.

Suppose, for example, that a holiday in
Glasgow is fixed for the first Tuesday of July,
and one in Edinburgh for the first Wednesday
of the same month. In a year in which July
begins with say a Monday or a Tuesday, these
two days would be in immediate juxtaposition
with each other. For the service of these holi-
days a great variety of special arrangements
require to be made, not only by railway com-
panies but by many others as well. If the
relation between the two days were a constant
one, the arrangements made in one year would
be a basis which could be founded on in sub-
sequent years. Particular arrangements which
proved inconvenient or ineffective would be
improved or abandoned and other expedients
substituted, until gradually a more and more
perfect working scheme should be arrived at ;
or if the juxtaposition were found to be alto-

g*ether impracticable, one or other of the holidays
would be altered to a more convenient date.
But under existing conditions such improve-
ment is impossible. If the two days in question
are in juxtaposition this year, because July
begins on a Tuesday, next year when July
begins on a Wednesday the first Wednesday
is the I St of the month, and the first Tuesday
does not occur until the 7th of the month, being
the Tuesday of the week following. All the
arrangements made this year are therefore of
no use or avail, and an entirely new set of
arrangements must be devised, only, however,
to be again shaken to pieces in the succeeding
year when the two holidays will again recur in
juxtaposition.

This, of course, is only one example, but it
is an example of what is continually happening
everywhere and always. It enormously dis-
turbs the working of our railway system, and
equally so the working of all other instruments
of holiday traffic.

If the variations of the yearly calendar
were few in number, and always succeeded one
another in a definite, rhythmic and easily in-
telligible order, it might be possible to adjust
our time-tables and arrangements with some

sort of corresponding harmony ; but under our
present calendar the irregularities are too great
to admit of this being done, a fact which will
be very evident from a consideration of the
accompanying table, showing in successive
columns the years between 1901 and 1950
which have identical calendars. The period
which contains all the possible varieties in the
relations between the week days and the month
days involves a revolution of 28 years, which,
as an element of the Julian Period, receives the
name of the Solar Cycle, one of which cycles
commenced in 1896.

TTief/ears wtOt Identicctl CalendiZKy fSOt-J/.

CHAPTER III

Further Inconveniences caused by our

Unstable Galendar

In our last chapter we took an instance of the
irregular correspondence of holidays as an
evidence of the disturbances for which our
present calendar is responsible. Perhaps some
may say that after all it is the arrangement of
our business days, not our holidays, which is
entitled to our first attention. That, of course,
is true, but then it cannot be overlooked that
our business arrangements are affected, and
constantly and very gravely affected, by our
holiday arrangements. If our calendar ad-
mitted of a permanent scheme of holidays, a
more permanent scheme of business engage-
ments would follow as a matter of course.
Moreover, it must be remembered that what is
holiday for one man means very frequently
extra work to others. It is the exceptional

traffic of the holiday season which constitutes

the most perplexing problem in the arrangement
of railway and other travelling time-tables.

The same difficulty complicates the arrange-
ment of work, not only in the case of railways,
tramways, and the like, but in the internal
economy of every commercial and industrial
establishment.

But, of course, the same constant clashing
and fluctuation of dates affects not only holidays
but all other fixed or special appointments. It
affects the arrangements which require to be
made in connection with all fairs and markets,
and confuses not merely the time-tables of the
railways which serve them, but the engagements
of all those who require to attend them.

Take, again, the case of a business man, who
is an official, a director, secretary, auditor or
other servant of several public companies.
These companies hold meetings on stated dates,
which are fixed in the same way as the holidays
above mentioned. With a perpetual calendar
every such business man would have a definite
and permanent programme of his year s engage-
ments, on which he could rely, on which he
could build. From the experience of one year
he would know exactly what his engagements
would be for the year succeeding, and could

arrange accordingly. Engagements which he
found incompatible one year would be incom-
patible always. He would therefore require
either to rearrange or abandon one or other of
them. The result would be that every business
man would have a definite calendar of his busi-
ness engagements applicable to his business
life. Under existing conditions, however, this
is impossible. His programme of engagements
remains fluent, uncertain, and constantly subject
to fresh and unforeseen disturbance.

The irregularities of the calendar equally
affect the sittings of Parliament, * of County
Councils, Town Councils, meetings of magis-
trates, sessions of Law Courts, and the terms of
all schools, colleges, and universities.

To take in this connection one specific ex-
ample of the contrast between the order and
progress which characterise scientific work and
the disorder and confusion of business arrange-
ments, let us compare what occurs when an
important surgical operation is in progress with
the method in which important pleadings are
conducted in the Law Courts. In. the former
case, every possible preparation is carefully
thought out and made ready beforehand.
Nurses and assistants are in attendance, and

when the hour of operation arrives the surgeon
is ready with all necessary assistance about him
to apply himself unreservedly and exclusively
to the engrossing* and vitally important task
which he has in hand.

Contrast this with what daily happens in the
Law Courts. The day of trial in an important
case, fixed long before, arrives. The solicitors
and junior counsel are in attendance, but their
attendance is very probably interrupted by the
calling of other cases in which they are con-
cerned at the same hour. The heavily briefed
leader, who'is expected to bear the brunt of the
battle, is more than likely nowhere to be seen.
The hearing of another case in which he is
briefed has unexpectedly clashed with the
former and demands his attendance. Later on,
he bustles into court, hurriedly takes up from
his junior some information as to the stage at
which the case has arrived and the name of the
witness under examination, and very likely
finds time to conduct the examination or cross.
But hardly has he concluded when another
summons calls him to another court, and the
case is left to flounder along without him. No
doubt, by the payment of specially heavy fees,
exclusive attendance may generally be arranged

for, but the above is a not incorrect description
of what daily happens in our Law Courts, and
it is affectation to pretend that such a state
of affairs is satisfactory to anyone, with the
doubtful exception of the doubly briefed senior
himself. We do not mean to say that a more
perfect calendar would of itself necessarily and
immediately obviate such a state of matters,
but it would render a remedy possible, and it
would also introduce into all business engage-
ments such a new spirit of order and regularity
that the existing state of affairs would quickly
be recognised as intolerable and would come
to an end.

CHAPTER IV
Gf Perpetual Galendars in the Past

Now the state of affairs of which we have been
speaking" is in the main ascribable to the hope-
less irregularity which characterises the relation
between the day of the week and the proper
elements of the calendar.

Under the ancient Jewish Calendar there
appears to have been much less incongruity
between the week and the month. The days
of the week, other than Sabbaths, were only
numerically disting'uished, and as reg'ards the
Sabbaths themselves, however the result was
accomplished, it is evident that there was no
such fluctuation as that of which we now
complain. For example, it will be found on
referring to Leviticus, 23rd chapter and 39th
verse, that the fifteenth day of the seventh
month was always a Sabbath.^ Indeed, it is

^ The Jews did not limit the term Sabbath to the seventh
day of the week. But this circumstance merely illustrates
the ready adaptability of the Jewish Calendar.

interesting to note that in order to secure that
the Feast of Trumpets, which marked the
commencement of the Jewish civil year, should
always be observed to some extent simul-
taneously, notwithstanding- the confusion which
mig-ht be caused by error or delay in noticing-
the appearance of the new moon, it was pro-
vided that the two first days of the civil year
should both be observed as Sabbaths.

The Roman Calendar, prior to the Julian
reform, was constantly disturbed by the
capricious methods of intercalation, the abuse
of which in the hands of the Pontiffs was the
true raison d'itre of the Julian reform. After
the establishment of the Julian Calendar, and
prior to the introduction of the week by
Theodosius, the Romans enjoyed the benefit of
a perpetual calendar. Those of us who, as
part of our education, were instructed in the
details of the Roman Calendar, may be apt to
remark that we often wondered how that g-reat
nation could have tolerated a scheme so compli-
cated. But in so doing we forget that that
calendar had at least this very great merit, that
it was perpetual ; it formed an unvarying basis
on which the business and policy of Rome
could be thought out and planned. The im-

portance of this fact in those times, when
communication was necessarily slow and un-
certain to a degree of which we can form no
conception, cannot well be overestimated. But
for the fact that such a perpetual calendar
existed, it would have been impossible to
organise the great and far-stretching energies
of the Roman Empire ; and it is a very notable
fact that it was only after the introduction of
the Julian Calendar that the main extension of
the Roman Empire took place, and only whilst
that calendar remained uninterrupted that it
continued to hold together.

As compared with our time, society under the
Roman Empire was furnished only with the
crudest of scientific ideas and the most primitive
of mechanical appliances. Yet its activities
were organised with the precision of a military
system. What would a Roman senator or
soldier have thought to-day of the street traffic
of London ? What impressions would he have
gathered from a visit to the Stock Exchange,
to Lloyd's, or to the lobby of the House of
Commons ? It surely cannot be suggested that
he would have seen any signs of progress and
improvement in the orderly organisation of
human action.

Again, it is not unworthy of inquiry how far
the insuccess with which the Mahommedan
peoples resist the aggressions of their Christian
neighbours is ascribable to the injurious
influence which their calendrial scheme must
have upon the effective organisation of their
resources.

CHAPTER V
Of the other Defects of our ealendar

If we turn to the arrangement of the lengths
of the months under our present calendar we
discover a multitude of other defects and
inconveniences which are consequent thereupon.
In the first place, we have the anomalous
length of the month of February. The calendar
month is roughly a one -twelfth fraction of
the year, and as such it has been found to
be a most convenient unit for the measure-
ment of time. The fact that, notwithstanding
the present irregularities in the lengths of the
months, it is still extensively employed, proves
very clearly that in the language of the
advertisers '* it supplies a felt want.'' But
its employment is restricted far more than we
are usually aware by the anomalous length of
February. If the months were always of either
30 or 31 days in length, the use of the calendar

month as a standard of measurement would

be considerably facilitated and increased. No
doubt, as we shall see later on, it is practically
impossible to secure that the months shall all
be of one and the same length. But if only
one inequality had to be provided for, and if,
moreover, as could easily be arranged, the 30-
and 3 1 -day months succeeded one another in
a rhythmical and symmetrical order, the utility
of the month as the measure of a period would
be greatly increased.

This is all the more important when we
recollect that one-twelfth is a most convenient
practical fraction, lending itself readily to a
division of the year by two, three, and four,
the most usual and natural divisors.

The week, on the other hand, is not an exact
submultiple of the year, and without interfering
with its uniformity cannot be made so. More-
over, in any case, the use of the week does not
facilitate the division of the year by the con-
venient divisors above mentioned. All the
more therefore is the irregularity of the months
a constant source of inconvenience.

The irregularity with which the 31- and 30-
day periods succeed one another in the case
of the other eleven months is, of course, a
further cause of inconvenience. It complicates

the calculation of days from any given monthly
date to any other — a calculation which, as
we shall see later on, could be reduced to the
very greatest simplicity. In the calculation of
interests, discounts, wages, rents, and all other
periodical payments, an immense amount of
unnecessary complication is caused by the
present arrangement or want of arrangement.
All this causes a great amount of additional
and unnecessary labour in banks, counting-
houses, and other financial and commercial
establishments.

The week is originally a labour period. The
month is the special instrument of calculation
in commerce, business, and finance. To all
classes interested in these activities, therefore,
the irregularities of the months are an incessant
source of trouble.

Everyone knows the advantages which,
largely owing to the Americans, have recently
been found to lie in standardising parts of
machines. The month is the great machine
of business calculation, and if its length could
be standardised a corresponding advantage
would immediately ensue.

One branch of calculation to which these
remarks are specially applicable is the employ-

ment of statistics — now so essential not only
to commerce but to politics and local govern-
ment.

These considerations are enforced by the fact
that the irregularities of the present months
involve an inequality in the length of the fourv
quarters of the year. Experience in all civilised
countries discloses the immense and constant
utility of the quarterly period of three months,
known in France and other countries as a
trimestre. The same period of three months
is the most usual period of currency of com-
mercial bills of exchange. Under our present
calendar the length of the first quarter is 90
days, of the second 91, and of the third and
fourth 92 days each. No doubt it may be said
that these differences are not great. That is
true, but the fact remains that they render the
quarters unequal and irregular ; the advantage
of standardisation is completely lost, and the
utility of the trimestre is very largely nullified.

If the quarters could be adjusted to a uniform>
length of 91 days, not only would that period
correspond in each case to two months of 30
days each, and one of 3 1 days, but it would
also exactly represent 13 complete weeks. The
. advantage of such uniformity in all matters

of bookkeeping, and especially in the auditing-
of accounts, would be very great. With what-
ever day of the week a quarter commenced, each
quarter would always contain 13 weekly pay-
days, and many books of account could in these
circumstances be schedulised.

These considerations may seem to affect
primarily the commercial classes, but they
necessarily react upon the industrial classes.
The g-reater the simplicity and economy in the
counting-house, so much the larger is the avail-
able wages fund. Indeed, so far as they are
personally concerned, the working men, who
cannot command the services of a staff of
trained and experienced clerks and accountants,
have a far stronger interest in the simplification
of all kinds of statistics than any other section
of the community. Their interests will never
be properly safeguarded until the accounts and
statistics which they are concerned to under-
stand can be presented in a form so simple
that he who runs may read. Working men
will then be able to undertake the intelligent
direction of their own affairs, and the quack
politician, the faddist, and the crank will find
their occupation gone.

CHAPTER VI
Of the Indirect eonsequences thereof

The foregoing are some of the more direct
results of the defects of our present calendar,
but their indirect consequences are quite as
far-reaching. They affect the orderly organisa-
tion of society in almost every direction. We
can only offer a few examples.

Human activity in modern life is sustained
by the organisation of innumerable institutions
and societies. These include {a) corporate
bodies charged with the administration of local
government ; {b) schools, colleges, universities,
scientific societies, and institutes ; and {c) in-
numerable charitable and benefit societies. But
the beneficent energies of all these various
organisations are terribly handicapped by want
of co-ordination, and by what is frequently
described as overlapping. The proper de-
limitation of their various spheres is not

certainly a matter which at first sight seems

to depend upon the calendar. Nevertheless,
we are satisfied that consideration will make it
plain that until we have a symmetrical calendar
such co-ordination will never be accomplished.
After all, their interadjustment is a matter
largely dependent on the place they are to take
in the lives of the persons who are interested
in them. And this can only be determined
when a scientific and tolerably permanent
calendar has been adjusted.

Another question which frequently gives rise
to discussion concerns the areas which should
form the units of local government or of other
activities comprised within the classes mentioned
above.

At one moment we find a current of opinion
in favour of larger areas, but no sooner have
such been established than the defects of
centralisation appear, and a renewed agitation
takes place for a return to the principle of
decentralisation with smaller areas and greater
local control. In short, a scientific frontier is
a constant desideratum, not only in the de-
limitation of national territories but in the
determination of local areas within the particular
state. That, again, does not at first sight seem
to be a matter which is immediately affected

by the calendar, yet once again we are well
assured that on consideration it will be found
that until a symmetrical and reasonably per-
manent calendar of engagements and arrange-
ments is devised, we will never reach a scientific
determination of this very important question.

We turn again to the question of combination
or separation of offices. At one moment we
find a strong movement in favour of the com-
bination of offices. One person is appointed
secretary and treasurer of some corporation or
society. The combination of appointments is
expected to prove beneficial. It may or it may
not. Very frequently it is found that a mistake
has been -made, and steps require to be taken
to have the appointments separated. Here,
again, we have a question which at first sight
does not seem to depend immediately on the
state of the calendar, yet here again we are
confident that reflection will show that until
a definite and enduring calendar of the engage-
ments of each public official can be drawn up,
no permanent and scientific solution of the
question is ever likely to be attained.

If such a symmetrical calendar as we shall
describe later on were in operation, such statutes
as the House-letting Act, the Half-Holiday Act,

and so forth would become practically un-
necessary. The arrangements of one year
being capable of repetition in the year following,
custom would gradually build up and solidify
into a system what experience had proved to be
most suitable, and such custom would either
render statutory enactment unnecessary, or if
such statutory enactment were required, it
would take the shape of the codification of a
well-established custom in place of being the
crude experiment of the busybody and the
professional politician.

It is probably unnecessary to point out how
enormously the working of such statutes as the
Pensions Act and the Health Insurance Act
would be simplified if each of the four quarters
of the year were exactly equal and contained
also an exact number of weeks. In many cases
quarterly could be substituted for weekly pay-
ments, and the necessary bookkeeping and
clerical services could be reduced to one-
thirteenth of their present volume.

We might multiply such examples inde-
finitely, but we hope we have now said enough
to show that the introduction of a simplified
calendar lies at the very root and foundation of
all true progress in the organisation of human

activities. The calendar being, as we have said,
the scheme whereby we arrange our time, that
is to say, all our actions, it naturally affects
universally all the doings of mankind. Its
condition is therefore of the most far-reaching
importance to all. It involves us so constantly
and universally that, like the air we breathe,
its influence is frequently unnoticed in virtue of
its. very immediacy. Until recently the im-
portance of fresh air to our animal vitality was,
from its very universality and immediacy, con-
stantly ignored. Of late years its importance
has been recognised, and we may perhaps hope
that in like manner society may yet come to
see the immense importance which necessarily
attaches to the proper arrangement of our time.
We now wish to invite the reader s attention
to the reforms by which it is proposed to remove
or alleviate the defects of which we have spoken.
These, it wjll be found, are fortunately of the
simplest nature. Before doing this, however,
we shall say a few words as to the origin and
true nature of the calendar.

CHAPTER VII
Of the Essentials of the Calendar

The celebrated French philosopher, M. Henri
Bergson, has suggested that life and time are
one and the same thing. However that may
be, it is certain that our knowledge of time
is dependent on the operation of the great
natural law of periodicity, by which also the
conditions of life on our globe are very largely
determined.

Every body, as Newton told us, remains in
its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight
line, unless so far as it is compelled by im-
pressed forces to alter that state. In point of
fact, no such condition exists in nature. The
whole physical universe is in a state of tension
under the constant influence of forces, and
these have the result of transforming recti-
linear motion into curvilinear motions which
constantly repeat themselves. This great law
of periodicity dominates the physical universe.

.*<Hft

Mc-:

But there are two periodic motions which pre-
eminently affect and dominate the life of man.
These, of course, are the two principal periodic
movements of the earth which he inhabits, to
wit, its rotation on its axis and its annual
revolution round the sun.

By these the forms of life on this earth seem
to be primarily determined — animal life by the
diurnal and vegetal life by the annual period.
Certain it is that these two movements give us
the two great natural and fundamental elements
of our calendar, namely, the day and the year.
The first object of every calendar is to deter-
mine correctly the relation which subsists be-
tween these two periods. Both the day and
the year, however, are terms susceptible of
varying interpretations, according to the point
of reference by which they are estimated.

As regards the DAY, for the purposes of the
calendar, the unit employed is the mean solar
day. From the fact that the earth's rate of
rotation upon her axis is constant, it follows
that the lengths of the sidereal and of the mean
solar day are both constant quantities. It is,
of course, well known that the length of the
day as measured by the time elapsing between
the moments of the sun's successive passages

across the meridian is an irregular quantity,
due principally to the varying rate of the earth's .
revolution at different points in her orbit. The
length of the day as measured by the sundial
is consequently a fluctuating quantity — exactly
corresponding with the length of the mean
solar day four times every year ; on all other
occasions being by a varying fraction either
before or behind the mean solar time. The
necessary corrections are indicated, under the
title of Equation of Time, in every almanac,
and in all civilised countries the mean solar
day is now universally adopted in reckoning,
although up till 1816 the actual variable solar
day was employed in France and certain other
countries.

The true length of the YEAR is also
susceptible of varying interpretations. The
sidereal year, being the period intervening be-
tween the earth's returns to a particular point
in her orbit as ascertained by reference to the
fixed stars, is one of the most constant quantities
in nature, but differs appreciably in length from
the tropical year, so called, as measured by the
time elapsing between the successive returns of
the sun to the equinox. It is, however, upon
the latter that the seasons depend, and accord-

ing-ly by the universal consent of mankind the
tropical year is adopted as the civil year, and
is the only year employed in connection with
human affairs.

The correct ascertainment of the relation
between the mean solar day and the civil or
tropical year is the fundamental and primary
object of every calendar. It is no doubt an
inconvenient, but at the same time an un-
avoidable fact that these two units are incom-
mensurable ; that is to say, the mean solar day
is not an exact fraction of the civil year, or con-
versely, the civil year is not exactly a multiple
of any given number of mean solar days.
/^ At a very early period the Chaldean and
Egyptian astronomers appear to have ascer-
tained the true length of the year with surprising
accuracy. But the ancient calendars were in
most cases complicated by the attempt to corre-
late the solar year with the period of twelve
lunar months.^ This involved the employment
of intercalary months. The Jews, for example,
after the month Adar interpolated every second
or third year an additional month known as
Ve-adar.

^ See The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, by
Sir Isaac Newton, p. 71 ^^ seqq.

It was to obviate the inconvenience and abuse
of this practice of intercalation that Julius
Caesar, in 45 B.C., undertook the reform which
has since always been associated with his name.
To restore the calendar to its supposed orig"inal
relation with the seasons, he interpolated one
year of extraordinary length (445 days), which
became known as the Year of Confusion ; and
he so readjusted the lengths of the months as
to provide a normal year of 365 days, the only
intercalation then required being- the one extra
day in each fourth or leap year.
^ Had the length of the tropical year been

exactly 365^ days, this calendar would have
perfectly accomplished its object, but the true
length of the year being only 365 days 5 hours
48 minutes 46*15 seconds, it is obvious that the
Julian Calendar had the effect of making the
year too long by rather more than 1 1 minutes.
This error annually accumulating amounts to a
day in 131 years, and by the fifteenth century
began to attract considerable attention, mainly
in connection with the determination of Easter.
The defect of the Julian Calendar was made
good in 1582 by the proposal of Pope Gregory
XIII. to omit the leap year out of three of every
four century years. The error which had

accumulated on the Julian Calendar since the
date of the Council of Nice, a.d. 325, was at
the same time corrected. When the Gregorian
Calendar was introduced into England in 1752,
the error of the Julian Calendar amounted to
1 1 days, to correct which, the days intervening
from the 3rd to 14th September 1752 were
omitted, and at the same time the commence-
ment of the year in England was changed from
25th March to ist January, the date which had
been selected by Julius Caesar as being that of
the first new moon after the winter solstice.
This latter change necessitates still certain
complications in referring to the dates of events
prior to the change, occurring in the part of the
year between ist January and 25th March, it
being customary to refer to them both by the
year in which they were actually dated at the
time, and also by the year following, to which,
on the principle of the calendar as now adopted,
they properly belonged. We mention this
circumstance in order to draw attention to
the magnitude of the changes then effected,
and to the comparatively small amount of
inconvenience which changes so extensive
occasioned.

A minute residual error of a few seconds

annually still exists under the Gregorian
Calendar. This error would only amount to
a day in the course of between three and
four thousand years, and can then easily be
corrected by the omission of an extra leap
day when the occasion requires. For all
practical purposes, however, it may be stated
that the calendar as now determined has finally
established a correct method for ascertaining*
the ratio between the lengths of the day and
the year.

Recent proposals for the reform of the
calendar do not, as a rule, in any way trench
upon the astronomical basis of the Gregorian
Calendar as now established.

Period of the Earth's revolution i ^.^ _», qm

Period of the Moon's synodic \ ^^d 12^ 44™ 3-5 3«

I 365^ 5^ 48'
Length of the tropical year j -^ -^ -^ t

revolution . . . . j
Metonic cycle of 19 years : —

A period of 19 tropical years = 6939^ 18^

23s lunations = 6939^ 16*^ 32°^ 28^

The Calippic period of ^6 years is more constant, because
it always contains the same number (19) of leap years.

CHAPTER VIII
Of the (Conventional Divisions of Time

The day and year are, as we have seen, the
fundamental elements of the calendar. But
365 is too large a multiple for ordinary use,
and consequently from the earliest times an
intermediate division has been found necessary.
All the nations from whom our European
civilisation is derived seem to have agreed in
making use of the moon as the intermediate
measure. The movements of the moon do
not affect our life as do those of the earth
itself which we inhabit, and in which move-
ments we cannot help but participate. There
is therefore no natural necessity that we should
conform to the movements of the moon. But
the phases of the moon constitute a most
convenient natural clock, readily legible by
the most uninstructed, and to this circumstance
we doubtless owe the use made of the moon,

and the adoption of the month as a time unit.

In the comparatively genial climates of the
countries bordering* on the eastern Mediter-
ranean, the conditions are specially favourable
for the observation of the lunar phases, whilst
in some at least of these countries the alterna-
tion of the seasons is much less marked than in
more northern latitudes. And there is some
reason to believe that in those regions the
month was employed as a unit of time even
before the solar year was very distinctly recog-
nised. When, however, exact measurements are
taken, the length of the lunation is found not
to be an exact multiple of days. The moon's
synodical period is 29 days 12 hours 44
minutes. The earliest civilisation to which
anthropologists take us back appears to have
been that of the Assyrians and the Egyptians,
which is now sometimes called the River
civilisation, as it developed on the banks of
the great rivers. These peoples appear from
the earliest times to have reckoned all their
months as of 30 days each, thereby departing
at once from any attempt to coincide with
the actual length of the lunation, and treating
the month as an arbitrary multiple of days.
No doubt the period was fixed in recognition
of the fact that the lunation completes itself

on the thirtieth day, but no attempt was
made to follow the exact length of the moon's
period. It may be remarked, in passing", that
this appears to have been not only the earliest,
but the most perfect calendar which could be
devised, the year being* completed by the
addition of five intercalary days at the end
of the twelve equal months.

This civilisation was succeeded by what is
frequently called the Mediterranean civilisation,
which exhibits features common to all the races
affected by it, althoug"h these were ethnologically
very widely distinguished. It includes the
Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, all of whom
apparently adhered more closely to the actual
lunar movement by adopting* months of 29 and
30 days alternately. The result of this arrang*e-
ment was to g*ive a lunar year of 354 days. To
complete the solar year and correct other
inequalities, the expedient was adopted of
introducing an intercalary month of varying
length every two or three years. These are the
principles upon which the Jewish Calendar was
based.

In the Greek Calendar also the lunar month
was prominent, and many efforts were made
to accomplish the well-nigh impossible task of

producing a combined luni - solar calendar.
Great importance was attached by the Greeks
to the discovery by Meton of the fact that, in
a cycle of 19 years, a very close approximation
is g-ot to an exact number of lunations. This
approximation was even closer in the Calippic
cycle of 76 years. But the genius of the Greek
mind did not lie in the direction of organ i sat iori,
and the Greeks* efforts in calendar construction
have not had any permanent influence, and
need not therefore be further described.
X^ The length of the Roman months was also
originally derived from the moon^s synodical
period ; but a dislike to even numbers, which
was deeply seated in the Latin mind, had
apparently led to the observance of months of
3 1 and 29 days, four being of 3 1 days and the
remainder of 29. An intercalary month was
tlius rendered necessary about every third year.
In Rome the Pontiffs, to whose hands the
adjustment of the calendar was entrusted,
abused the power of intercalation for political
ends. A consul whom they favoured found his
year of office extended by the premature inter-
calation of an extra month ; whilst one whom
they disliked had his reign cut short by the
postponing of an intercalation perhaps already

overdue. The result was that in troubled times
the Roman Calendar gradually got out of hand,
and by the time of Julius Caesar the con-
fusion which prevailed was creating universal
disturbance.

It was these abuses which really led Julius
Caesar to establish the calendar which has ever
since borne his name. His idea was to reduce
the intercalations to a minimum, and to take
care that that minimum should be operated
automatically and with unvarying regularity.
He therefore allowed no intercalcation except
the 366th day every fourth year, to complete
the fraction of a day over 365 days which makes
up the solar year. To obviate all other inter-
calations, either one or two days were added to
the length of the shorter months. The months
thus came to be of 31 and 30 days alternately,
and ceased to have any astronomical relation
to the moon's period. They became simply
arbitrary fractions of the year. The attempt
to constitute a combined luni-solar calendar
was thus abandoned. Julius Caesar still, how-
ever, unfortunately retained the idea of arrang-
ing the months in pairs, a plan which owed its
origin, as we have seen, to the attempt to make
the month conform to the lunation. This plan.

however, resulted in an ordinary year of 366
days, being- the amount of twelve months of
31 and 30 days alternate length. It became
necessary to deduct one day from one month,
and as the intercalations had previously been
made at the end of February, which until then
hgd been the last month of the Roman year,
that month was selected for the purpose, and
was reduced in length to 29 days in ordinary
years. Naturally, therefore, the 366th day in
leap years was introduced here, and February
was restored in these years to the leng-th of
30 days. No doubt any intercalation oug'ht
to be made either at the beg'inning-, middle, or
end of the year. February, therefore, was a
proper place for such under the pre-Julian
Calendar, but was no long-er suitable after
Caesar had fixed the commencement of the
year at the ist of January. Unfortunately,
however, the intercalation had become associ-
ated with certain religious observances, known
as the Feasts of the Terminalia, which were
celebrated in February, and for this reason
Caesar, although he had changed the com-
mencement of the year to the ist of January,
did not feel himself strong enough to enforce
any change in the date at which intercalations

:JM

were made. He was therefore obliged to
introduce his leap year intercalary day in the
month of February, which his own action had
now rendered quite unsuitable for that purpose.
In 44 B.C., soon after the Dictators death,
the month Quintilis was renamed after him
July. When, for political reasons, his nephew
Augustus subsequently resolved by legal en-
actment to declare the divinity of himself and
his uncle, it was decided as an auxiliary
measure that the month Sextilis should be
named after him. July and August thus
received the names which they have ever since
borne. But, at the same time, in order that the
month called after himself should be as long
as that called after his uncle, or perhaps because
of the belief that even numbers were unlucky,
Augustus raised August to a month of 3 1 days,
and reversed the alternate lengths of all the
subsequent months.^ This gave seven months
of 31 days in the year instead of six, and in-
volved the docking of another day off February.
Notwithstanding these alterations, which com-
pletely destroyed the symmetry of the Julian
Calendar, the Romans, as we have already

^ See La Chidve del Calendaro Gregoriano^ published
(con licentia degli superiori) at Lyons, 1583, p. 148.

mentioned, continued to enjoy the advantages
of a perpetual calendar until the week was
legalised some centuries later.

The 7-day week formed no part of the Greek
or Roman Calendar, and as it is not an
aliquot part either of the month or of the year,
it has never been regarded as technically an
element of the Julian or Gregorian Calendar ;
and when the Gregorian reform was introduced
no interruption in the succession of week days
was made.

Various suggestions have been put forward
as to the origin of the week. It is not in-
frequently said that it was originally a fourth
part of the lunation, and that each week was
intended to mark a successive lunar phase.
But the disparity of length appears too great to
justify this suggestion, and we have been un-
able, after careful consideration, to find any
origin of the week so historically probable as
that which maintains that it was from the first
a religious institution.

CHAPTER IX
The Reform off the Calendar

We have now seen something of what a calendar
essentially is, and also of the very grave and
serious inconveniences which constantly follow
from the existing calendrial arrangements.

{a) As we have more than once observed, the
introduction of the week side by side with the
Julian Calendar entirely destroyed its perpetuity .
All civil as well as religious observances being
regulated by the days of the week, — these could
no longer occur in successive years upon days
occupying the same numerical position in the
year. All arrangements depending upon the
calendar were necessarily disturbed and required
readjustment annually. To revert to an illus-
tration already offered. What, we might ask,
would be thought if we arbitrarily altered the
amount of our weights and measures by one-
seventh of their value once every year ? or what
would be thought if the letters of the alphabet

49 4

were obliged to move one step up every year
on the ist of January? Yet these alterations,
absurd as they may seem, would not occasion
a disturbance more universal than that which
we voluntarily impose upon ourselves by the
annual dislocation of the calendar.

To bring the weekly succession into harmony
with the days of the year, there are two possible
expedients available.

First, the result can be accomplished if one
day in each year and the odd- day in leap
year are excluded from the weekly succession.
The present writer, in formulating this pro-
posal, made use of a well-known legal term, and
proposed that these days should be treated as
dies non. This has led to a good deal of
misunderstanding, it being thought that the
intention was that by some fiction it should be
pretended that these days did not exist. That,
of course, is not the correct meaning of the
expression. In the civil law the term dies non
simply meant a day on which public business
could not be transacted, in fact, a civil Sunday,
— and nothing more has been intended now, —
although for many centuries after the institution
of the bissextile day in leap year it was treated
as legally part of the day preceding, and an Act

of Parliament making" provision to that effect
was actually passed in England in 21 Henry
III. A.D. 1236, bearing the rubric, De anno
bis sex till}

Second, the same result could also be reached
by making the ordinary length of the civil year
364 days, and maintaining its correspondence
with the solar year by a more extended use of
the principle of intercalation, — the intercalary
periods being a week and a fortnight, which
would be required, approximately, at intervals
of 7 and 28 years respectively.

{8) It is very remarkable that either of these
expedients would assist uniformity to be
attained also in the arrangement of the
months and quarters. We have noted that at
present the lengths of the quarters are irregular,
the first consisting of 90, the second of 91, and
the third and fourth of 92 days each. If the
365th and 366th days were enumerated merely
as days of the year, the remaining 364 days
would permit of a division into four quarters

1 The 366th day under the original Julian Calendar was
intercalated at the sixth day before the Kalends of March,
namely, the day after 23rd February, which day was held to
be duplicated, the additional day being regarded legally as
a rcioxQ punctum temporiSy hence the name bissextile.

of 91 days each, which might be divided into
two months of 30 and one of 31 days, thus
ensuring* symmetry in the four quarters of the
year, and a great consequent saving in the
calculation of all apportionable payments.
Each of these quarters, moreover, would neces-
sarily comprise 13 exact weeks. The original
grouping of the months into pairs of 29 and
30 days was due, as we have seen, to an
endeavour to follow the length of the lunation,
which so nearly amounts to 29! days. At the
best, that arrangement was nearly three-quarters
of an hour wrong every month, but when one
day was added to each month, so that the pairs
consisted of months of 31 and 30 days each,
this grouping had no longer any connection
either with the moon or any other natural
phenomenon ; and no conceivable reason can be
urged why we should not prefer the arrange-
ment of the months in four groups of three,
which would correspond to the four seasons
of the year, and to the universal practice of the
community in all civilised countries.

The advantages to be derived from the
establishment of four such equal quarters are,
as we have already indicated, very numerous.
The period elapsing from any day in any month

to the corresponding" day three months forward
would always be the same, namely, 91 days.
Any period of three months would always
consist of 91 days. Each quarter would always
contain 13 weekly pay-days, and would there-
fore include 13 weekly payments. Harmony
and simplicity would be introduced into the
financial business of the year. The keeping*
of accounts would be simplified, and accounts
themselves more easily understood. The 365th
and 366th days could be observed as g-eneral
holidays. If found suitable, they need not be
computed in the ordinary calculation of rents,
interests, and discounts. Work done on either
of them would not be included in the ordinary
weekly wage, but mig-ht be separately and
specially remunerated, and payments for the
ordinary work of the remainder of the year
could then be clearly and simply stated either
by week, month, or quarter.

CHAPTER X

Proposals for Reform

A LARGE number of proposals have from time
to time been formulated for the improvement
of our calendar on the lines already indicated.

A proposal of this sort formed part of the
theory of social amelioration associated with
what is called the Positive philosophy in-
augurated by Aug'uste Comte.

A proposal on somewhat similar lines was
advocated in Eng'land some years ag*o by Mr
Moses B. Cotsworth, formerly of York. But
these proposals seem both to have involved the
establishment of a year containing* 13 equal
months of 28 days each. They involved, there-
fore, not only the alteration of the length of
every one of the twelve months of the year,
but an alteration also in the total number of
months from 12 to the extremely inconvenient
number of 13, with the consequent introduction

of an altog-ether new month. The disturbance

which changes so extensive would necessarily
have caused would have very largely detracted
from the advantages which were intended to be
secured. It is not therefore surprising that
neither of these proposals impressed the business
community either in Great Britain or on the
Continent.

Some years ago the present writer turned
his attention to the subject, and in December
1907, being then unacquainted with the sugges-
tions previously formulated, he published his
Proposal for a Simplified Calendar, the scheme
of which is represented on one of the accompany-
ing diagrams. This proposal, having been read
before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and
submitted to the British Science Guild, and to
a number of public men, attracted considerable
attention in the Press. In March 1908, Mr
Robert Pearce, M.P., to whom the author had
submitted it, proposed to introduce a Bill into
the House of Commons with the object of
legalising the reform, and the Calendar Reform
Bill of 1908 was the result. Mr Pearce, how-
ever, insisted on including in his Bill an
enactment fixing the date of the ecclesiastical
festival of Easter, an object which, however
desirable, appeared to the present writer to be

Class B.

^{.Ame

Class A.

[Ac.

St-*'

I^J^HJ'

If"**
It

a matter in the first instance for the ecclesiastical
authorities to determine. Another Bill, intro-
duced into the House of Commons in 191 1 by
Sir Henry Dalziel, embodied a modification of
the writers proposal suggested by Mr J. C.
Robertson, and which was almost identical
with plans already suggested by Herr Arnold
Kampe of Hamburg, and by Mr Immo S. Allen
of London. The proposals of this Bill will be
subsequently referred to. As the discussion
which had taken place had made it evident
to the writer that interference with the week-
day succession was distasteful to the ecclesias-
tical authorities, he, in conjunction with Mr
Robert Harcourt, M.P., drafted the Calendar
Amendment Bill, which was introduced into the
House of Commons in 19 12, and under which
it was proposed to limit the reform to the months.

Altogether independently of the movement in
Great Britain, proposals of a somewhat similar
nature had been formulated on the Continent at
an even earlier date.

In 1884 an anonymous donor in Paris offered
a prize of 5000 francs for the best plan of
calendar reform, the competition being under
the supervision of the well-known French
astronomer, M. Camille Flammarion, represent-

ing the SocUtd A stronomique de France, A
large number of proposals were submitted, the
first prize in the competition being ultimately
awarded to M. Gaston Armelin for the plan
figured No. i on the preceding illustration, and
the second prize to M. Emil Hanin for the plan
figured No. 2.

Subsequent discussion and criticism have
disclosed a growing belief that the first prize
ought to have been awarded to M. Hanin, and
the present writer takes this opportunity of
remarking that, before publishing his proposal,
he hesitated long between the plan which in the
end he published, and a scheme which com-
menced the quarters with a 31 -day month, as is
done in the plans suggested by MM. Armelin
and Hanin.

No ver>^ practical result seems to have
followed from this competition, but some years
later the matter was reopened on the Continent
by the publication in the Journal of Horology
of Geneva of a proposal by Professor Grosclaude,
whose calendar is figured on the illustration
No. 3. It will be observed that this proposal
is nearly identical with that published by the
present writer (which is figured in the illustra-
tion No. 4), the only difference being that under

Professor Grosclaude's calendar the quarters
commence with a Monday instead of on a
Sunday, the object being- to place the five
Sundays within the 31 -day month.

A number of other proposals have appeared
on the Continent within recent years, which it
seems unnecessary to describe in any detail, as
they are merely modifications, most of which
have from the first been recognised as open to
objections which make it unnecessary to detain
the reader with their description.

A great step in advance took place, however,
when the matter was brought under the notice
of the International Congress of Chambers of
Commerce, which meets now every second year,
and whose affairs are under the direction of a
very influential and capable Comitd Permanent
sitting in Brussels. The subject was first
discussed at the 1908 meeting held in Prague.
At the Congress held in London in 19 10
calendar reform was the first item on the
programme, and after a full discussion the
Congress, under the presidency of M. Canon
Legrand, and without committing itself to
any particular plan, unanimously adopted, the
following resolutions, which were reaffirmed at
the Boston Congress of 1 9 1 2 : —

1. II est desirable d'arriver a I dtablissement
dun calendrier fixe international,

2. // est ddsirable de rdaliser par accord
international la fixitd de la date de Pdques.

3. Le Congrds charge le Comitd permanent de
provoquer V initiative d'un gouvernement qui
convoquerait une conference diplomatique offi-
cielle aux fins de rdaliser lafixitd de la date de
Pdques et r dtablissement du calendrier fixe
international.

In accordance with the above-quoted resolu-
tion, the Government of the Swiss Republic
was approached, and issued tentative invita-
tions to the other European States, inviting
them to say whether they would attend a
diplomatic conference for the discussion of the
question. Further proceedings have, however,
been delayed, largely, it is believed, because of
the fear entertained by the authorities of several
states that the religious susceptibilities of their
subjects might be excited.

At the Fifth International Congress ot
Chambers of Commerce, held at Boston in
September 191 2, the President, M. Canon
Legrand, spoke as follows : —

*' Now, as regards the religious ques-
tion, I have a few words to say. It is

obvious that what we are doing does not
go against any religious conviction ; we
respect all convictions ; but we hold that
all religions are interested to have a uni-
form calendar, and can so arrange it.
This is what we think, we merchants and
business men, while respecting at the same
time all religions.

** Furthermore, I have just received from
one of my German colleagues a notice which
is supposed to have come from the German
Embassy at Rome to the Chancellary at
Berlin, saying that it would appear that
the Roman Curia, as well as the Greek
Orthodox Church, would not be disposed
to consider the question.

** It would seem, then — we simply have
a notification coming from Germany, —
that at Rome, as in Greece, there is not a
present disposition to consider the matter.
That does not prevent us, however, from
confirming it with our vote. We do not
wish to be disagreeable to anyone ; we
respect all convictions ; but we insist on
saying, between business men and mer-
chants, that it is desirable to have a fixed
Easter and a uniform calendar.'*

The resolutions of the London Congress were
then unanimously reafifirmed by the Congress.

So soon as the advocates of reform can
generally agree upon one simple plan, which
will avoid all risk of wounding religious sus-
ceptibilities, definite progress may be looked
for, and the discussion which has already taken
place has been so full and extensive, that there
is now reason to hope that a general agreement
may be attained. If discussion be limited to
the reform of the civil or monthly calendar, a
diplomatic conference may be held without the
slightest danger of offending any scientific or
religious principle or sentiment. We therefore
venture to advocate the general acceptance of
a declaration in favour of one such simple
proposal, particulars of which will be given in
a subsequent chapter.

In the next place, however, we propose to
notice one or two objections which have been
directed to the entire project, and which we
shall endeavour to show very briefly to be
without foundation.

CHAPTER XI

General Objections to the Simplification
of the Calendar answered

To begin with, we may remark that at any rate
to the majority of the projects which have been
brought forward no scientific objection is capable
of being stated. This is not remarkable when
we consider that the proposals now under
discussion do not concern the astronomical
principles on which the Gregorian Calendar is
based. They do not contemplate any altera-
tion in the relations of the day and the year, but
are concerned merely with the rearrangement
of the conventional subdivisions of the latter
period, and the equally conventional groupings
of the days.

Second, we sometimes hear the suggestion
of a so-called historical objection. Mindful
of the disorder which the introduction of the
Gregorian Calendar undoubtedly caused in the

reference to dates anterior to the reform, some

have feared that a similar confusion might result
from the changes now proposed. A little reflec-
tion should make it clear that such fears are
unfounded. The confusion in question onl}'
resulted from the introduction of the Gregorian
Calendar because Pope Gregory the Xlllth
made the reform retrospective in order to correct
the error which, under the Julian Calendar, had
continued to accumulate since the date of the
Council of Nice. It was this retrospective action,
involving as it did the omission of ten or eleven
days in the monthly enumeration, which gave
rise to the confusion between the old and the
new style. The proposals now under discus-
sion involve no retrospective change, and we
may therefore set this objection aside as alto-
gether imaginary.

Some, however, are heard to complain that
the reform will introduce a hard and inflexible
uniformity, and will destroy the variety of
social life. Such persons do not seem to have
grasped the difference which exists between
variety and confusion. The increasing com-
plexity of modern life necessitates the prudent
simplification of the conditions of thought and
action. The necessity of this is felt in the

case of our -weights and measures, as also of

the different prime-meridians, of the different
monetary standards, and, indeed, in regard to
all the arbitrary machinery which constitutes
the necessary instrument of civilised life. The
advantages of simplification in such cases are
too clear to admit of dispute, but the difficulties
of introducing- the simplification are often very
serious. The reform of the calendar now pro-
posed has this special feature in its favour, that
its introduction would not involve any derange-
ment of established conditions.

Such a simplification is not hostile, but, on
the contrary, is essential to a variety truly
interesting. Thus, for example, harmony in
music is not only essential to beauty, but at
the same time renders possible a variety in-
finitely greater — whilst at the same time
rational and intelligible — than that which could
be produced by the most untrammelled babel of
discordant noises. In like manner, the reform
of the calendar, by introducing* harmony and
stability into the relations subsisting between
its various elements, will not only involve an
immense simplification and abbreviation of all
purely mechanical calculations, but will at the
same time give a quite new meaning* and
interest to all our measures of time.

CHAPTER XII

Gbfections to the Interference with the
Succession of Weelc Days

As far as regards the proposals to re-establish
a perpetual calendar by excluding the 365th
and 366th days from the weekly enumeration,
a number of objections have been stated on
behalf of very influential representatives of
ecclesiastical authority and opinion.

Certain of these objections are probably based
on misapprehension. For example, an impres-
sion appears to have existed in certain quarters
that the proposal would infringe a supposed
divine command to commemorate on every
seventh day the resurrection of our Lord. It
seems curious that those who most strongly
object to interference with the regular order of
the weekly commemoration should be the
strongest advocates of the maintenance of a
constant fluctuation in the more important

annual commemoration of the same event,

which is observed in the celebration of Easter.
The fact is, that all anniversary commemora-
tions are much more arbitrary than most people
are aware of. This was well illustrated by Dr
Cecil Reddie in a paper recently published on
the educational advantages of Calendar Reform.
*' Few people/' he says, ** realise the fact that
there is no such thing as a real anniversary
corresponding exactly to any day in any
previous year. This is due to the simple truth
that the rotation of the earth on its axis, which
produces the period called *a day,' is not a
submultiple of the period occupied by the earth
in its revolution round the sun, which we call
a *year.' Consequently, suppose a king born
exactly at noon on 31st December 1908, what
will be the anniversary of that auspicious
moment ?

'* In 1909 at 5 hours 48 minutes 46.15
seconds a.m. on 31st December; in 19 10 at
1 1 hours 37 minutes 32.3 seconds p.m. on
31st December; in 191 1 no anniversary at all ;
but in 191 2 two anniversaries, namely, first, at
5 hours 26 minutes 18.45 seconds a.m. on ist
January, and again at 11 hours 15 minutes
4.6 seconds a.m. on 31st December, z.e. nearly
three-quarters of an hour before noon.*'

But notwithstanding the criticism to which
these objections may be fairly submitted, it is
impossible not to recognise that a very large
portion of the religious world would regard
such a change as involving a departure from
the spirit of the injunction which the fourth
commandment contains. It is true that the
establishment of a perpetual calendar on such
a basis would tend not to undermine but to
ensure the stability of the 7-day week. The
52 weeks of the year would then each have
its appointed place in the calendar. Each
would become, in fact, like a miniature month,
would probably receive a name, and would be
particularly associated with particular festivals,
commemorations, and observances. Indeed,
under such a system, the Christian year, with
all its significant symbolism, might in time
become a real and vital constituent of social
life. But even the prospect of such marked
advantages has not moved the ecclesiastical
authorities. The uninterrupted observance of
every seventh day appears to them to be the
essential requisite of the fourth commandment,
departure from which cannot be sanctioned by
the Christian Church.

In the Lower House of Convocation of the

Church of England a Committee was appointed
on 5th May 191 1 to investigate the question,
with the learned convener of which — the Arch-
deacon of Bath — the writer had the honour to
be in frequent communication. This Com-
mittee, in April 191 2, submitted to Convoca-
tion a Report^ in which, whilst pointing* out
that the Bills promoted by Mr R. Pearce and
' Sir Henry Dalziel were ecclesiastically objection-
able, they go on to say of Mr Harcourt s Bill
that ** it is much less drastic, takes the line of
least resistance, avoids the dies non, and leaves
the seasons and days of the Church untouched."
The findings of the Committee, which were
adopted by Convocation at a subsequent dis-
cussion which took place on 2nd May 191 2,
are annexed to the Report. They are as
follows : —

That in view of the movement for Calendar
Reform by international agreement, the House
deems it important to insist on the following
points : —

I . That the week of seven days should not
be altered, and that Sunday should
continue to be its first day.

^ Sold at the National Society*s Depository, Westminster.
Price 2d.

2. That no alteration should be made in
the date of Christmas Day.

From these it will be seen that the Church of
Eng-land has officially refused to assent to the
application of the dies non to the week-day
succession.

At Rome the Holy See have been approached
more than once, and indications have been
given that the subject is under consideration
by the Congregation of Rites. The Holy See
will naturally be slow to give a final pronounce-
ment on the subject, but from the expressions
of opinion which have appeared in various
Catholic journals, it seems unlikely that their
decision will be in principle different from that
reached by the Anglican authorities. Reference
may be specially made to articles which appeared
in the Ecclesiastical Review, the leading
Catholic magazine published in the United
States of America, in its numbers for May,
August, and December 191 2.

At a recent meeting of the Comity Pennanent
of the International Congress of Chambers of
Commerce, the President reported that the
Director of the Belgian Observatory had dis-
cussed the subject at Rome both with Mgr.
Lepidi, the President of the Congregation of

Rites, and with Cardinal Merry del Val. The
latter had then expressed the opinion that the
arrangement of the calendar was not a question
of dogma but of an Act of Government. But
— referring to the application of the dies non
to the week — his Eminence added that the
question **est plus grave, parce quelle touche
^ la liturgie. II y a, parait il, un certain
espacement des jours ^ garder et la curie
romaine admettrait difficilement une semaine
dans laquelle il y aurait un jour intercalaire."
Such objections have not been confined, how-
ever, to the Churches. . The following passage
from the leading English scientific journal,
Nahtre (27th April 191 1), shows that they find
an echo in the highest scientific circles : —

*' It is an unfortunate fact that a
calendar of ideal simplicity is precluded
by the nature of things. Much difficulty
would have been avoided had the tropical
year, the synodic month, and the mean
solar day been commensurate periods of
time, and if, moreover, the number of days
in a year had contained certain simple
factors. With the Julian calendar, it is
true, the lunar month has been placed out of
consideration. But the week remains as a

fundamental unit of time in human affairs.
If only the year had contained 336 days,
absolute simplicity would then have been
attainable, for we should have had four
equal quarters of three months each, each
month containing" exactly four weeks. As
thing's are, we must be content with some-
thing less simple, and even so, commensura-
bility between the year and the week can
only be obtained by placing one day (or
two days in the case of leap year) outside
the ordinary run of the calendar. This is
the suggestion of Mr Philip of Brechin,
who has proposed that the first day of the
year should be thus set aside under the
name of New Years Day, while in leap
years a second day of the same kind should
be intercalated between the months of June
and July. The idea, of course, is not
original in principle, for it was used by
Auguste Comte in a slightly different way,
and has been attributed to Littr^. It
offers the only means of avoiding a change
in the calendar from year to year, and is
to this extent attractive. But it has the
great disadvantage of introducing dis-
continuity at the very point where con-

tinuity has been preserved in the face of
many other changes. The week can boast
a most ancient lineage, uninterrupted by
the slightest break/ Prejudice in its
favour must be anticipated, and weighty
reasons must be adduced if this feeling is
to be overcome."

Now the success of a calendar reform
depends upon its being accepted with practical
unanimity. Those who object to the interrup-
tion by one day annually of the weekly succes-
sion have frequently invited advocates of the
reform to confine their attention to the months.

^ This is not certainly beyond question. An eighteenth-
century astronomer, James Ferguson, F. R.S., long ago
remarked : * * I find by calculation the only Passover full
moon that fell on a Friday for several years before or after
the disputed year of the Crucifixion was on the 3rd day of
April in the 4746th year of the Julian period, which was the
490th year after Ezra received the above-mentioned com-
mission from Artaxerxes Longimanus, according to Ptolemy's
canon, and the year in which the Messiah was to be cut oflf
according to the prophecy, reckoning from the going forth of
that commission or commandment ; and this 490th year was
the 33rd year of our Saviour's age reckoning from the vulgar
era of his birth, but the 37th reckoning from the true era
thereof." (Ferguson's Astronomy, p. 397.) Of course, the
37th year of our Saviour's age is now acknowledged to be a
quite inadmissible date for the Crucifixion.

The opinions we have quoted clearly show that
this advice should be accepted. The adjust-
ment of the monthly calendar does not of itself
provide us immediately and directly with a
perpetual calendar, but it does immediately
provide many other advantages, and it will
familiarise us with the conception of rhythm
and order in our calendar arrangements, and
thus at least enable the question of a perpetual
calendar to be more clearly understood.

Although these two portions of the complete
scheme of calendar reform can be most perfectly
adjusted to each other, they are at the same
time absolutely distinct and separate. There
is no reason why they should be combined.
Ardent advocates of reform sometimes ask why
should we make **two bites of a cherry" ; but
although to those who have studied the subject
the whole matter appears extremely simple,
there is little doubt that for the general com-
munity one of these reforms is quite enough to
be put forward at one time. The reform of the
monthly calendar which we are to advocate
now is one which would harmonise completely
with the subsequent adoption of a perpetual
calendar. The step would never therefore
require to be retraced. At the same time, it

would leave the question of a further change —
either by interfering with the weekly succession
or otherwise — quite open, and it is not unlikely
that if once a symmetrical monthly calendar
were in operation, means could be found to
attain all the other requisites of a perpetual
calendar without infringing in any way the
limits imposed by ecclesiastical authority.

It cannot, moreover, be denied that the observ-
ance of the week is embedded in the customs
of the community, and a change in such
customs might not be easily effected. On the
other hand, as regards the correction of the
month lengths, if the small changes required
received legislative sanction, the almanacs and
the daily newspapers would follow suit, and the
thing would be done without any more trouble
to any human being than accompanies the
introduction of the 29th day in February under
the present system. It is otherwise with the
week. Moreover, the observance of the week
prevails not only amongst the nations using
the * Gregorian Calendar, but amongst the ad-
herents of the Orthodox Church, amongst Ma-
hommedans, and even amongst other Eastern
peoples, who could not easily be reached by
legislation or international enactment.

As already pointed out, if any further change
were to be found desirable, it might be brought
about by an alteration in the length of the civil
year ; and we may add that the major portion of
its advantages could be secured by the employ-
ment of an adjustable calendar of quarterly
engagements, a plan suggested by the present
writer in 191 1 in a paper which he read on the
subject to the British Association at Ports-
mouth.

For all these reasons, we are decidedly of
opinion that the advocates of calendar reform
should exclude from their proposals any sugges-
tion of interference with the succession of week
days, and should confine them to the rearrange-
ment of the months and of the position of the
366th day in Leap Year.

CHAPTER XIII

Proposals for the Readjustment of
the Monthly Calendar

(i) Months as Week-Multiples

The proposals which have been made for the
readjustment of the monthly calendar may be
divided into two classes. First, those which
endeavour in some way or another to make
the month an exact multiple of weeks ; second,
those which would make the calendar month
as nearly as possible an even twelfth fraction
of the year.

The former proposals sometimes take the
form of 1 3 months of 28 days each ; some-
times two half months of 14 days are added
to 12 months of 28 days. A proposal to
divide each quarter into two months of 28
days and one of 35 days has been already
referred to.^ Such proposals have recently been

^ Illustrations of two such proposals are here reproduced
from an article in the Bulletin commercial et industriel Suisse.

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urged with considerable persistence, and it
therefore becomes necessary to inquire whether
they are practicable and whether they offer any
advantages worthy of consideration.

In the first place, it is to be observed that
unless accompanied by the enforcement of a
perpetual correspondence between week day
and month day they would be inoperative.
For that reason we might perhaps lay them
aside without further consideration. But even
if that correspondence were secured, it is sub-
mitted that they possess no real advantage.
For it must be remembered that if the ciies non
were adopted, the weeks, as already pointed
out, would at once occupy a permanent and
definite place in the year, would become minia-
ture months, and that any attempt to group
them in months would therefore from the very
fact that it became possible, become at the same
time unnecessary.

Apparently a supposed benefit of such an
arrangement in the minds of many is the idea
that the monthly number of any particular
week day would be more readily memorised:
Let us see whether this can be justified.
Whatever plan we adopt as to the length of
the months, whether these are arranged in

groups of 30, 30, 31, or of 28, 28, 35, if once
a perpetual calendar is established, the relations
between the week day and month .day applicable
to one quarter would be repeated thereafter for
ever, so that whenever the relations for one
quarter were memorised, we should be in
possession of the calendar for all future time.
Thus a 3-month perpetual calendar would
be all that would be required for the ascertain-
ing* of any date, and it would occupy such a
small amount of space that it could and would
be printed everywhere, everyone would carry
one about with him, and memorising would
hardly be necessary. Further, there is no
doubt that in such circumstances every child
of ten would have already learned the necessary
calendar by heart. It would be a much easier
thing" to acquire than the multiplication table.

But would the correspondence established
by the 28, 28, 35 scheme be much or any easier
to remember than the other ? So far as regards
the first 28 days of the first month they would
be identical. The question only refers therefore
to the remaining 63 days. We are satisfied
that it will be found on examination that the
numerical relation of these days is quite as
simple under the one scheme as under the

other. Let anyone who may be doubtful set
himself, without previous preparation, to answer
off-hand the dates of any given week days, say
the third Sunday, the fourth Monday, of the
second or third month under each system, and
he will at once discover the truth of what we
have said. For it is to be noted that under the
former system only the Saturdays would be
exact multiples of seven. In recalling* the
date of any other day an addition or sub-
traction must be made. Exactly the same
operation with two added or subtracted would
give the date under the other system. The
advantage of easier memorising is therefore
found on examination to be purely fanciful.

But even if there were such a gain it would
be of no material importance. It is really a
very trifling matter compared with the real
and solid advantages of a symmetrical calendar,
and should not for a moment be placed in
opposition to more serious considerations.

It is sometimes mentioned as an advantage
of this proposal that — if it were conjoined with
a perpetual calendar — every month would always
begin with a Sunday. We do not know
whether this is regarded as a distinct and
separate advantage, or whether it is merely

another way of stating* the supposed benefit
of simpler memorising. But we feel satisfied
that so far from being an advantage, it would
be found to be very distinctly a disadvantage.
It is decidedly a better plan that only one
month in three should begin on a Sunday, and
thus that in two months out of three the first
day of the month should be available for ordi-
nary civil and secular business. It might, we
believe, prove to be rather a serious matter
if the first day of the month were never avail-
able for such purposes. Yet this disadvantage
is nothing compared to the fatal difficulty that
such a proposal would absolutely destroy the
calendar month as a practical instrument for
the enumeration of days.

The month being the unit by which days
are enumerated, it is desirable that the lengths
of the months should be as nearly as possible
the same, so that as far as possible the same
interval may always elapse between the same
numerical date in any two or more months.
The drawback caused by the irregularity of
February has already hampered the use of the
calendar month for this purpose, and has
prevented its employment for many purposes
for which it would otherwise have been suitable.

With this disturbing element removed, there
is every reason to believe that its use would be
largely extended.

But the month is used not merely as an
instrument for the enumeration of days but
as the measure of a period. Its utility in this
respect is very great, but again has been
hampered hitherto by the irregularity of
February. There is no doubt that its em-
ployment for this purpose would be altogether
destroyed were the months to vary from 28
to 35 days in length. The word month could
no longer have a definite meaning, and could
not therefore be utilised as a standard measure
of time. We should require to distinguish
between long months and short months, and
we leave it to the reader to imagine the confusion
that would ensue.

Those who have aimed at making the month
a multiple of weeks are therefore confronted
with this dilemma : either recognising the
necessity for uniformity in the lengths of the
months they must accept 13 months of 28
days, or else, recognising the necessity for
maintaining the number of months at 12, they
are compelled to destroy their uniformity in
point of length.

As regards the former alternative, we have
found that in itself a 30-day period is for most
purposes superior to a 28-day period. To
make the months conform more nearly to a
30-day standard is a simplification which
follows the lines on which the month has
naturally developed. To substitute months of
28 days is to introduce a new standard of
length for the month, one, moreover, which
would deprive it of the immense advantage of
being a twelfth fraction of the year.

It was the recognition of these defects which
led certain parties to endeavour to retain the
month as a twelfth of the year by the ex-
pedient of four- and five-week months. But the
device is entirely fictitious. Neither of these
periods is even approximately a twelfth fraction
of the year, and obviously, if the month some-
times means one period and sometimes another,
its use as a definite fraction of the year is at
an end.

It is fortunate that the advocates of this
proposal went the length of putting their plan
in the form of a Parliamentary Bill. This
imposed upon them the necessity of introducing
clauses with the view of making their calendar
operative, and a perusal of these clauses is

sufficient to show how cumbrous and unwork-
able such a scheme would be. As was pointed
out in Nature, 26th October 191 1, special legal
provision is required for payments in the case
of monthly contracts to be made proportional
to the length of the month concerned. More-
over, a legal definition is required for the
duration of a month from any given date.
The clause which endeavours to provide for
this is worth reproducing. It is as follows : —

** In calculating monthly periods the follow-
ing rules shall apply. In any period beginning
in a long month and ending in a short month,
the last day of the short month shall be held
to be the corresponding day to any of the days
in the last week of the long month.''

As the writer in Nature points out, this
clause seems to imply that the month may
mean any period from 28 to 35 days, and, as
he adds, the clause comes perilously near to
a reductio ad absurdum of the whole scheme.
He puts the following simple question, and
leaves it to the promoters of the scheme to find
a solution : — A domestic servant is engaged on
March 32 at ^22 a year, — what is the amount
of the first monthly payment, and when will
it be due?

We are indeed convinced that even the
complicated clauses which this Bill contains
would not provide machinery sufficient to
enable such a scheme to work satisfactorily.
In a word, it might be said that the proposal is
altogether unsuited to the needs of the com-
mercial community. It appears, however, to
be attractive to the minds of some, and we
have thought it necessary therefore to discuss
it at a length which its merits hardly deserve.

The fact is that while a perpetual correspond-
ence between the week day and the month day
would confer many advantages, no such ad-
vantage would result from a correspondence
between the week length and the month length.
After innumerable attempts it may safely be
said that such correspondence is unattainable
without one or other of the disastrous conse-
quences above described. Fortunately, there
is no necessity for the weeks and the months
to coincide oftener than at the dates when
accounts are usually balanced. A quarterly
correspondence is all that is required, and that
is equally well secured by the other class of
proposals.

Both in respect of use and of origin the week
and the month are radically distinct. Except

in connection with labour^, the week is not
suited to be a calculation period. It is seldom
employed as such in commerce, banking, or
finance, and if the months could be regularised,
it is quite likely that the wages question would
be solved by making wages payable on the
15th and 30th of the calendar month. But
however that may be, — with quarterly periods of
91 days, either arrangement would be equally
convenient. Indeed, if under such a calendar
the use of four- or five-week periods were found
to be desirable, there would be nothing to
prevent their employment. It would develop
naturally. But such periods would not be
calendar months, and nothing but confusion
could result from any attempt to force them
into that position. In a word, it is evident
that the proposal proceeds upon an entire mis-
conception of actual requirements and would
confer no real advantages, whilst it would
involve a disturbance of existing arrangements
which is altogether absent in the case of pro-
posals of the second class, to which we shall
now direct our attention.

These proceed on the footing that the month
must be accepted as fundamentally different
from the week. In relation to the year, it

represents the useful fraction of one-twelfth,
whilst the week is not an aliquot part of the
year at all. Indeed, the week, as we have seen,
is not really historically a part of the civil
astronomical calendar, but rather an instrument
for defining- and apportioning the claims of
relig*ion and daily labour amongst the days.
Both the Julian and Gregorian reforms were
therefore limited to the civil calendar properly
so called, and were in no way concerned with
the week.

CHAPTER XIV

Proposals for Readjustment of
the Monthly Calendar

(2) Symmetrical Months

We come now to those proposals which aim at
the establishment of four equal quarters of
91 days, divided into two months of 30 and
one of 31 days each, the 365th and 366th days
being also symmetrically located.

Of these proposals there are only two which
require our attention. First (A), the proposal
to set aside the first day of the year as Year Day
or New Year s Day, and to arrange the follow-
ing 364 days in four groups of three months
containing 30, 30, and 31 days each. The Leap
Day under this system is intercalated between
the end of June and the beginning of July, and
corresponds at the commencement of the second
half of the year with the position of New Year s
Day at the beginning. Second (B), the pro-
posal which divides the year into four quarters

of three months, each consisting of one month
of 31 days and two months of 30 days, but
adding, however, the 365th day as 31st
December and in Leap Year adding the Leap
Day as 31st June.

Plan A is that formulated by Professor
Grosclaude in his widely accepted proposal,
and as it happens is also the scheme which
was published by the present writer in his
pamphlet already referred to.^ Whilst there
is very little to choose between the two plans,
it may fairly be maintained that plan A, taken
as a whole, will be found to be the most simple,
symmetrical, and perfect which has been or can
be devised for the simplification of the monthly
calendar. An inspection of the comparative
diagrammatic illustrations of the different
schemes will, we think, support this view.

The main argument which has been advanced
in favour of plan B has been that, taken in
conjunction with a perpetual calendar, it would
give five Sundays in each 31 -day month, and
four Sundays in each of the other two.^ There
would thus be in each month a perfect equality
of 26 jours ouvrables. This object Professor
Grosclaude attempted to secure in his calendar

^ See p. 57. 2 See p, 56.

by commencing each quarter with a Monday.
This, however, is at once regarded as an
attempt to alter the first day of the week, and
for this reason there is little doubt that the
Grosclaude proposal in its entirety would
never be accepted. The present writer made
no attempt to secure such uniformity of jours
ouvrables, believing that it would be of little or
no practical value. The amount of time devoted
to labour within any particular month is seldom
dependent exclusively upon the number of
Sundays which that month includes. In many
countries a large amount of work appears to
proceed on Sundays quite the same as on other
days, whilst in other countries the amount of
working time is affected not only by the inter-
ruption of Sundays but by Saturday half-
holidays, not to mention other breaks. In any
case, a variation of working days in each of the
three months of the quarter, provided that such
variation was rhythmical and orderly, would
not, in the writer s opinion, be found in any
way objectionable. At the same time, he feels
bound to recognise the fact that the equality of
jours ouvrahles appears to many, whose opinions
are worthy of respect, a matter of some im-
portance, to be kept in view in the possible

event of a perpetual weekly calendar being
subsequently arrived at.

A more serious consideration, however, in
arriving at a decision, is that plan A requires
for its symmetrical working the exclusion of
the 365th and 366th days from the monthly
enumeration. No doubt it is possible to
include each of these as days of the month, and
provision was duly made for this in the plan
as embodied in the Calendar Amendment Bill
of 191 2. But it must be admitted that this can
only be secured by interfering slightly with the
symmetry of calculations. If under this plan
New Year Day be computed as the ist of
January, then the period from any given date
in January to the same date three months later
is 92 and not 91 days. The same disparity
occurs no doubt under plan B, when the period
of calculation includes the 31st of December;
but under that plan the year up to 30th
December is unaffected, and complete uni-
formity can be secured by simply excluding
the 31st of December from the calculation,
whilst it is not admissible so to treat the 31st
of January, which must be held to be one of
the ordinary working days of the year.

It is maintained by some — and we admit the

force of the contention— that the calendar
should provide a place for every day of the year
within one or other of the twelve months which
have been for so many centuries recognised as
the complete and exhaustive subdivisions of
the year ; that, indeed, a calendar should supply
a purely unappropriated framework of days
without earmarking" any special days as blank
days, holidays, year days, or the like, — leaving
all questions as to which days are to be set
aside for any one purpose or another to be
dealt with otherwise, without the decision being
prejudiced by anything in the nomenclature of
the almanac.

If this proposition be accepted, then we are
ready to admit that the plan B is the best which
can be devised.

Another advantage to be found in plan B is
that under it Leap Day would be enumerated
as the 31st of June. It is decidedly better to
have a day which only occurs occasionally placed
at the end of a month and numbered with a
number not hitherto appropriated, than to have
it declared to be the ist of July in Leap Years,
the necessary extra day being added at the end
of that month. As no such date as the 31st
of June has hitherto existed, there can be no

fixtures dependent upon it, and it is for that
reason specially suitable to be observed as a
general holiday.

The important thing about the 366th day is
to provide that it shall not occur in the middle
of a quarter. This is, indeed, one of the most
essential points in the whole problem of calendar
reform. If in our present calendar Leap Day
had not broken in upon a quarterly period, it
would have been at least theoretically possible
to have worked into an arrangement of four
equal quarters, notwithstanding the irregularities
in the lengths of the present months. It would
not certainly have been easy, but the interrup-
tion of Leap Day renders it impossible. In
respect of the position of Leap Day, however,
nearly all the proposals which have been made
have more or less recognised that its position
should be extra trimestrial. So far as this is
concerned, both plans now under discussion are
equally sound.

It is a further advantage of plan B that under
it the calendar between ist September and
28th February would be absolutely unchanged
and unaffected. It is for several reasons im-
portant to leave the calendar at the beginning
and at the end of the year quite unaltered.

Dates would be advanced in ordinary years
by one day in April, June, July, and August,
and by two days in March and May ; in Leap
Years by one day in March, May, July, and
August. That is the change. A similar dis-
location takes place at present in Leap Years as
compared with ordinary years. Though it ex-
tends over ten months, it is practically unnoticed.

On the whole, the differences between the two
plans are really small ; and as no progress can
be made until a general agreement is arrived at,
it is suggested that all should agree to support
the proposal for a calendar in conformity with
plan B. It is at any rate certain that this plan
involves an absolute minimum of change in the
existing arrangements. It requires only three
slight alterations in the lengths of the existing
months, and the placing of the Leap Day in a
much more convenient position than it at present
occupies, whilst at the same time it seems to
contain all the essential advantages of a calendar
reform, and to require no changes to be made
which would ever afterwards fall to be retraced.

There can be no doubt that every possible
alternative scheme has now been fully described
and considered, and the time seems ripe for a
step in advance, in the shape of united action

on behalf of one simple and practical scheme.
When we consider the enormous advantages
which chang*es so extremely simple would entail
not only to the commercial community but to
every rank and class of society, and when we
consider how very easily these changes could
be effected, we can hardly bring* ourselves to
believe that the world will much longer refuse
to help itself to the benefits which lie waiting
to be picked up. We are even convinced that
the increasing confusion and complexity of
social arrangements will very soon compel
action to be taken ; and although the present
proposals do not at all affect the ecclesiastical
calendar, we are also well assured that it would
be worth while for the ecclesiastical authorities
to place themselves in co-operation with the
Chambers of Commerce and other civil associa-
tions which are advocating the reform. They
might thus secure the establishment of a
system which would remove so many defects of
our present calendar, that the result would be
to give the Churches a much easier task to face
in dealing with any questions which may sub-
sequently arise in regard either to the fixing of
Easter or of other elements of the ecclesiastical
calendar.

Janua.

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CHAPTER XV
A Proposed International Agreement

As we have already indicated in the foreg"oing
pages, the arrangement of the months in four
groups of three months, consisting of 31, 30, and
30 days was suggested by M. Hanin at the
Paris competition in 1884. M. Hanin more-
over has, it is believed, latterly favoured the
placing of Leap Day at 31st June rather than
at 32nd December. Such an arrangement
admits of both the 365th and 366th days being
easily enumerated by a monthly number, whilst
at the same time such a calendar contains no
month of more than 31 days. A similar plan
has been suggested by Professor Dr W. Koppen
of Hamburg and by Dr W. E. G. Biisching of
Halle a/S, and other students of the subject.^

1 See an excellent pamphlet by Dr Busching entitled
Die Kalenderreform^ Halle, 191 1, price 80 pf. ; also La
Reforme du Calendriery by M. Armand Baar, Li^ge, C.
Desoer, 191 2.

lOO

This arrangement of months has been favourably
received also by the Illinois Academy of Science,
by a Committee of reformers in Moscow, and
by others in various quarters. It may naturally
be expected to be viewed with favour in Russia,
for it is equally suitable and advantageous to
the Julian as to the Gregorian Calendar. Indeed,
its adoption in both would simplify the stating
and memorising of corresponding dates under
the two styles, whilst at the same time it
would raise no kind of obstacle to the sub-
sequent adoption of the Gregorian Calendar
by the adherents of the Orthodox Church, or
vice versa.

Convinced that such a rearrangement of the
civil or monthly calendar is the one and only
practical proposal before the world to-day, the
author, after consultation with the above-
mentioned gentlemen, has drafted the following
manifesto, which has obtained the adhesion of
Professor Nyland, Utrecht, and of Dr Koppen,
Herr Biisching, the Rev. Pastor Rosenkranz,
and many other authors of plans. This mani-
festo is intended to serve as a general basis
for united international action.

lOl

United Manifesto by Advocates of

Calendar Reform

'Whereas we, the undersig-ned, have for some
time been interested in a Reform and Simplifi-
cation of the Calendar now in use in Western
Europe, America, and elsewhere, with a view
to equalising" the four quarters of the year,
alleviating" the irregularities of the months,
and establishing a perpetual correspondence
between the day of the week and the day of the
month, and have supported one or other of the
several proposals which have been formulated
for effecting these reforms ; and whereas
said proposals usually provide for placing the
365th day of every year and the 366th day of
Leap Year without the weekly and monthly
enumeration ; and whereas we have found
that in certain quarters — both ecclesiastical and
scientific — objections, possibly often sentimental,
but none the less firmly held, have been stated
to the employment and adoption of these
expedients ; and whereas it is obviously
desirable that any simplification of the calendar
should be generally acceptable to ecclesiastical,
civil, and scientific opinion ; and whereas we

I02

are satisfied that a valuable reform can be
effected without incurring these objections, —

Therefore, we have resolved to unite in
urging" and advising that the very simple
changes undernoted should now be made in the
Julian and Gregorian Calendars by international
agreement, namely : —

(i) The months of March and August shall
each yield a day to February.

(2) The month of May shall yield a day to
April.

(3) The 366th day in Leap Year shall be
31st June.

The monthly calendar will then stand as
follows : —

January 31 days April 31 July 31 October 31

February 30 „ May 30 August 30 November 30
March 30 „ June 30(31) September 30 December 31

We make these recommendations .for the
following REASONS, namely : —

1 . To the changes here proposed no objection
has been stated, either by astronomers or by
the ecclesiastical authorities.

2. Their adoption would leave the States
concerned entirely free and untrammelled in
subsequently deciding whether any further
changes were necessary or desirable, and under

I03

no circumstances would it be necessary to
retrace or revoke these changes.

3. The changes now proposed concern only
the monthly calendar, and could be introduced
without causing the slightest disturbance of
any of the existing arrangements which regulate
public business, civil polity, commerce, industry,
or social life.

4. In respect that the equalisation of the
quarters involves an earlier date of the vernal
equinox, the changes proposed are a necessary
preliminary to the treatment of the question of
the fixing of the date of Easter — should the
Churches decide to deal therewith.

The following, among other ADVANTAGES,
would immediately result from this reform : —

1. It would remove the anomalous length of
the month of February, which, arising from its
position at the end of the Roman year in the
pre-Julian Calendar, has now no justification,
either scientific, legal, or historical.

2. The lengths of the months, being always
either 30 or 31 days, and these succeeding one
another in regular order, a standard month
would be practically attainable, and the utility
of the calendar month as a measure of time
would be greatly increased.

I04

3. Every year would contain four successive
quarterly periods of exactly equal length, namely,
91 days — leaving one odd day over at the end
of the year.

4. Each successive trimestre would contain
exactly 13 weeks.

5. With the exception only of periods which
include the 31st December or 31st June, the
interval between any given date and the same
date three months later would always be 91
days. The exceptions named would be very
easily memorised, and for many purposes it
would be found convenient to omit the 365th
and 366th days in the computation of days.

6. With the same exceptions, any given day
of the month would be the same day of the
week as the corresponding day three months
later or earlier.

7. The weekly and monthly calendar for a
period of three months would be repeated
exactly for each of the four quarters in any
ordinary year, and for each of the first two and
last two quarters in every Leap Year.

8. Seven such trimestrial tables would con-
tain all the possible variations of the week day-
month day calendar for ever.

9. A great simplification would thus be

los

effected (a) in the calculation of interests and
discounts, salaries, wages, rents, and other
periodical payments, {d) In the use of statistics,
and in the keeping, auditing, and checking of
books of account, (c) In the arrangement of
sessional work, such as sessions of Law
Courts, Schools, Universities, Local Authorities.
{d) In the adjustment of holidays, and the
arrangement of traffic Time-tables. (e) In
the Tables of the Dominical Letter for future
dates.

ID. The intercalary day in Leap Year would
occur after Easter.

1 1 . The intercalary day would occur between
two trimestres, and on a date hitherto unappro-
priated, and specially suitable to be observed
as a general holiday.

12. A principle of harmony and rhythmical
succession would be introduced into the calendar
which would beneficially influence all the
arrangements of civil life and -the habits of
Society.

io6

TABLE

showing the length of two, three, and four
consecutive months in the present and

the simplified Calendar.

NOTE.— In both cases the 366th day and, under
the simplified Calendar, the 366th day are
excluded from the enumeration.

Under present Calendar. Under proposed Calendar.

Length of two consecutive months.

59 61 62 61 61 61 61 61

60 60

61 61

59
61

61
61

61 61 60 60
61 62 61 61

Length of three consecutive months.

90
89
92

91
92
92

92 92

91 aU 91

Length of Quartor.

92 92 always 91

Length of four consecutive months.

120 122 123 122 122 122

120 123 122 121 121 121

122 122 122 121 121 121

CHAPTER XVI
The Date of Easter

Questions affecting* the festival of Easter have
for many centuries, — indeed throug-hout the
Christian era, — largely influenced discussion and
decisions about the calendar. It was, in fact,
the difficulties which had arisen in the deter-
mination of the Easter date which led to the
introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, whilst
to-day the desirability of establishing a fixed date
for Easter appears to many the most pressing of
all calendrial problems. The ascertainment of
a rule for the determination of Easter dates is
largely responsible for the elaborate development
of calendar tables and calculations which are to
be met with in systematic treatises upon the
calendar, and which are an abiding* monument
to the ing'enuity and patience of the ecclesi-
astical astronomers of the Middle Ages. But
without reference to these, the essentials of the
problem can be quite simply stated.

The key to the study of the Easter question

107

io8

must be sought, in the first place, in a reference
to the Jewish feast of the Passover. As is well
known, the Jews, by divine command, were
appointed to celebrate their delivery from Egypt
by the commemorative feast of the Passover,
which commenced with the Paschal supper of
which the Jews were directed to partake on the
14th day of the first month. The Jewish
sacred or ecclesiastical year was at the same
time appointed to commence with the vernal
equinox ; the civil year, on the other hand,
commencing as it had previously done, with
the autumnal equinox. As the Jewish months
were lunar, the 14th day approximated to the
time of full moon, and as the first month com-
menced with the vernal equinox, it followed that
the Passover fell to be celebrated about the time
of the first full moon thereafter.

The Crucifixion of our Lord took place on a
Friday, and the Last Supper with His disciples
on the previous Thursday evening. It appears
from the scriptural narratives that the Passover
was observed by Caiaphas and the Jewish
priesthood on the Friday, and innumerable dis-
cussions have taken place as to the reason why
the Passover was observed by our Lord upon
the Thursday and by Caiaphas on the Friday.

log

When the Church came formally to institute
the festival of Easter, a division soon manifested
itself over the question whether the practice of
Christ and His disciples was to be followed, or
whether the commemoration was to take place on
Good Friday, the actual date of the Crucifixion.
The Eastern Church favoured the Thursday
observance, and accused the other party of
following the practice of Caiaphas rather than
that of Christ. The Roman or Western Church,
however, adhered firmly to the observance of
the actual date of the Crucifixion. The two
parties were named respectively the Quarta-
decimans and Quinta-decimans, and after much
debate the question was determined in favour
of the Western view at the Council of Nice,
over 'which the Emperor Constantine presided,
in 325. The decision of this Council did not,
however, altogether allay dispute, which broke
out again in England several centuries later,
and was not settled without bloodshed.^

Looking back now upon this long dispute, it

^ It was not until 716 that the English clergy submitted
themselves to the Papal rule in this matter. A Council
held in England in 599 had affirmed the Eastern rule. In
retaliation Ethelfrid, the Northumbrian King, at the instiga-
tion of the Roman party, massacred 1200 monks at Bangor
who adhered to the Quarta-decimans.

seems not improbable that it was due largely
to a misunderstanding. The Jewish day was
computed to run from sunset to sunset, and
accordingly when Christ and His disciples ate
the Last Supper after sunset on Thursday
night, they were observing the Passover after
the following day had by the Jewish rule
commenced.

The Council of Nice further decided that
the Resurrection should always be celebrated
on a Sunday. They accordingly decreed that
the feast of Easter, by which all the other
movable feasts and festivals are regulated,
should be observed on the first Sunday
after the first full moon which happened on
or after the 2ist of March. Had the terms
of the decree been after the vernal equinox, no
ambiguity or difficulty could have arisen. ' But
for some reason or other the expression used
was '* after the 21st of March.'' At the date of
the Council, a.d. 325, the 21st of March was
the date of the vernal equinox. Under the
Julian calendar the equinox fell originally upon
the 25th of March, but owing to the fact
already mentioned, that the Julian year was
about eleven minutes longer than the tropical
year, the date of the equinox had receded to the

Ill

2 1 St of March by the time when the Council of
Nice was held. This gradual retrocession of
the date can hardly have escaped the observation
of the advisers of the Nicean Council, but they
made no provision for it, and do not seem to
have noticed that, as a necessary result, in course
of time the 21st of March, instead of being- the
day of the equinox, might have been the day
of the summer solstice. Thus the fast of Lent
and the festival of Easter would, after the lapse
of many centuries, have come to be observed
in the middle of summer. It was to obviate
this slow movement of the Easter date through
the seasons of the tropical year that the
Gregorian reform was introduced. It can
hardly be questioned that it was a wise course
to guard against the gradual increase of this
error, and to ensure a more exact correspondence
between the lengths of the calendar and the
tropical years, although at the same time it
must be admitted that the error was so small,
and its accumulation so slow, that except in
connection with the question of Easter it had
not occasioned any appreciable inconvenience.
But whilst we may acknowledge that it was
desirable to stay the accumulation of this error,
it may certainly be doubted whether it was wise

112

or necessary to make the reform retrospective,
to undo the error which had already accumu-
lated since the date of the Council of Nice, and
to restore the date of Easter to its original
relation to the 21st of March.^

Such, however, was the course adopted by
Pope Gregory XIIL, and in consequence the
world since then has suffered by the confusion
and inconvenience of the conflict between the
new and the old styles.

In the Act of Parliament by which the
Gregorian Calendar was legalised in England,
there will be found rules and tables from which
the times of Easter may be found for any
number of years to come. These tables are
based upon the Metonic cycle of 19 Julian
years.^ Although a recourse to astronomical
observation does not always give the same result,
it is nevertheless true that little confusion
has arisen from the regulation of Easter in
accordance with these tables.

^ This view of the Gregorian reform was clearly stated as
long ago as 1819 by the Venerable Archdeacon Brinkley,
F. R. S. , in his Treatise on Astronomy,

2 The Metonic cycle was first employed in the determina-
tion of Easter by Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea in A. D. 270.
The Western Church preferred a cycle of 84 years, until
Victorius of Aquitaine in 457 based the computation on a

It will be observed from what we have stated
that the ecclesiastical calendar based upon the
determination of Easter is luni-solar, — depend-
ing* first upon the date of the vernal equinox,
and secondly upon the period of the moon's
synodic revolution. So long* as it is required
that Easter shall fulfil both requirements, the
observance of that festival upon one fixed date
annually is impossible. Of recent years in
many countries a strong feeling- has arisen in
favour of a fixed date for Easter. The move-
ment is particularly active in such countries as
Germany, in which the date of many of the civil
fairs and markets is dependent upon the date
of Easter. That these should constantly
fluctuate within a range of 35 days, and
should sometimes fall at an inconveniently

cycle of 532 years, — the multiple of the solar (28-year) cycle

and the Metonic (19-year) cycle. The table of Victorius

became the law of the Church by a Canon of the Fourth

Council of Orleans in 541. After the introduction of the

Gregorian Calendar, authoritative tables were published by

the Jesuit astronomer Clavius. These were simply an

adaptation of the 532-year cycle to the Gregorian year. In

all these the Metonic cycle is assumed to be perfect, and the

full moon is taken as the opposition of mean sun and mean

moon. Hence the calendar full moon does not always

coincide with the actual full moon.

114

early season, has given rise to much discontent
and dissatisfaction ; but no solution has been
suggested, or indeed, can be supposed possible,
which does not involve a departure from the
principle that Easter should be celebrated at
the time of full moon. Whether the ecclesi-
astical authorities will consent to the adoption
of a fixed date, irrespective of the moon's age,
is primarily a question for them to determine.^
Certain religious associations would, of course,
be interfered with. It was by the light of the
full moon that Joseph of Arimathea carried
away the body of Jesus. So far as the secular
fairs and markets are concerned, the Churches
may fairly reply that there is no necessity why
these should be made to follow the fluctuations
of Easter. In any case, it seems pretty certain
that the Jewish Church will never consent to
observe the Passover at any date which does
not correspond with the 14th day of the moon's
age. Even for the Christian Churches, the
question is likely to be one of difficulty. Here
it is important to observe that the deter-

^ The subject is understood to be at present under con-
sideration by the Congregation of Rites, and Mgr. Lepidi
and Cardinal Merry del Val have indicated that it is not a
matter of dogma but ** un acte de gouvernement. "

mi nation of Easter oug^ht to follow rather than
to precede the establishment of a normal
monthly calendar. Owing* to what may be
called the greater amplitude of oscillation of
Easter dates, the -disturbance caused by their
fluctuation is more obvious than that due to the
other irregularities of the civil calendar. But
the latter are more constant in their operation.
They affect the entire year ; and it is thought
that their disorganising influence is really much
greater than anything which can be attributed
to the variable Easter date. In any case, a
symmetrical readjustment of the lengths of the
months and the dates of the Ephemerides ought
obviously to precede any measure which may
be taken for fixing the dates of particular feasts
attached to particular days of the calendar ;
whilst if the advantages of a normal civil
calendar were once secured, the way would be
paved for a clearer understanding of the other
and subsequent questions, and it is not unlikely
that by this means many of the difficulties
associated at present with the variability of
Easter might either be modified or altogether
removed.

CHAPTER XVII
A Rhythmic Year

It would be a fascinating* speculation to en-
deavour to picture in detail the order of life
under a perpetual calendar, but as we have
decided that such a calendar is not for the
present practicable, we shall refrain from the
attempt.

We may, however, be allowed to summarise
the principal advantages which would be de-
rived from the symmetrical rearrangement of
the civil calendar.

One obvious consequence of its introduction
would be the more extensive employment of
the quarterly period or trimestre. Each
quarter would rhythmically correspond to its
predecessor in the length and order of the
subdivisions of which it was composed.
Quarterly periods of 1 3 weeks and three months
continually succeeding one another would lead

to order and harmony in all the arrangements

116

117

of public business and society. It is true that
in successive years the commencing week day
would be changed. The change, however,
would be a regular one. The commencing
week day of the first quarter would be the
commencing week day of each quarter of the
ordinary year. Pay-days might be varied
accordingly. The whole scheme of arrange-
ments would be adapted to correspond. Each^
of the seven different possible quarterly calendars
would be identified by reference to its com-
mencing week day, which might be said to
give the keynote to the arrangements of that
year.

These advantages are quite apart from the
simplification, which we have already dwelt
upon, in all calculations of wages, rents,
interests, and other periodical payments, and
in the framing of cash-books, pay-sheets, rent-
rolls, traffic returns, and other statements of
accounts.

It is evident, also, that the various legal terms
of notice, which are at present in a state of
endless confusion, would be standardised. The
times of notice, or to use a Roman legal term,
the inducice, upon the service of summonses,
the times allowed for various appeals, the period

ii8

of intimation required for public obligations,
the notice to be given in summoning public
or commercial meetings, — all these and many
other legal obligatory periods of the same kind,
with which the whole statute book is at present
interspersed without any order or method, could
be made regular and systematic, and a founda-
tion would thus be laid for the realisation of
that dream of the jurist — the codification of
statute law.

Take, again, the incessant and irritating
alterations and variations which are constantly
madfe in our railway and other traffic time-
tables. A very large proportion of these are
the consequence of the ceaseless variations in
business arrangements which our irregular
calendar entails. With a rhythmic year,
whilst we do not say that our time-tables would
be stereotyped, it is nevertheless true that
their main features would be more and more
perfectly standardised, the changes required
being fewer in number and directed steadily
towards the establishment of a more and more
perfect working plan, with a consequent large
reduction in working costs and lessening of
the risk of accidents and delays.

With regard to the orderly arrangement of

119

the dates of public appointments, such as fairs,
markets, holidays, opening's of school and
college sessions, meetings of local authorities
and magistrates and the like, we have already
seen how the clashing* of such dates continually
arises under our present calendar, owing to
the incongruity of the week. A perpetual
calendar would immediately solve these diffi-
culties ; but without resort to that expedient
the same practical result might be arrived
at in the following way : — Every symmetrical
quarter of 91 days is equivalent, we have
seen, in length to thirteen weeks ; but owing* to
the variation in the correspondence of week days
and month days, it is only occasionally that the
quarter will contain thirteen exact and complete
weeks. It will, however, always contain twelve
complete weeks, commencing* with the first
Sunday and ending with the twelfth Saturday.
The thirteenth week will constitute a remainder
over, either wholly at the end or partly at the
commencement and partly at the end of the
quarterly period. Now, if we take a calendar
of these twelve weeks, we can transfer to it the
different appointments and eng*ag'ements of any
given quarter. Taking the first quarter of the
year, the first four weeks would accommodate

I20

the January engagrements, the second four those
of February, and the third four those appro-
priated to dates in March. Having filled up
our twelve-week calendar with these engage-
ments, we now have them definitely placed in
a permanent relation to each other. All we
require to do is to place this calendar along-
side a calendar of the monthly dates of the
quarter in question, and by moving the weekly
calendar upwards or downwards as the case
may be, we obtain the day and date of all
such engagements and appointments for any
particular year, whilst at the same time they
remain in a fixed and permanent relation to
each other, and the risk of clashing or over-
lapping is altogether avoided. In this way
the main advantages of a perpetual calendar
could be secured without the application of
a dies non to the week day. It is true that
between each of the quarters there would
intervene one blank week, which would serve,
if one might say so, as a sort of buffer separat-
ing the public engagements of one quarter from
those of another, and providing a quarterly
interval which would be comparatively free of
all such engagements. The time available for
these in any one year would, under such a

121

scheme, be limited to forty-eight weeks, but
it is thought that this limitation would be
distinctly beneficial and would greatly facilitate
the harmonious operation of the various public
services.

The scheme of such a perpetual adjustable
calendar was exhibited by the present writer
to the British Association at Portsmouth in
September 191 1, and is represented in the
accompanying illustration.

Every community and corporation, every
town, every college, every society, every
railway company — indeed, every individual —
might have their or his perpetual adjustable
calendar, adapted to their requirements. In
the first instance, at any rate, legislation would
not be resorted to.

All that is required is the adoption by inter-
national agreement of the few simple changes
necessary to provide a symmetrical monthly
calendar, followed in each country by a short
statute of three or four clauses to give effect
to the international understanding. Such a
statute need have no penal clauses ; no
inspectors or other officials would be required
to see to its enforcement. Let the Act be
passed, and the almanacs and newspapers might

122

be safely trusted' to do the rest. The chang-e
whilst universally beneficial would cost nothing-
to initiate.

In the present day an impression seems
widely to prevail that unless a reform costs
money it must be of no value.

Political parties seem always disposed to
associate their projects of improvement with
the appointment of armies of officials, the
raising- of loans, and the imposition of a new
tax. Some urge that import duties are the
cure for all social ills ; others cry out for
increased taxes on land or on capital. Nearly
all seem to overlook the universal benefits
which the simple act of adopting a more
rational calendar would confer on every class
and section of the community, — benefits which
can be had for the taking, and which are
literally available ** without money and without
price.''

APPENDIX
Draft of a Galendar Amendment Act

An Act for amending the arrangement of the days of
the months under the Gregorian Calendar and for
other purposes in relation thereto.

Be it enacted, etc. —

First, — In every year, commencing with the year
19 , the days of the year shall be apportioned amongst
the months as follows : —

Jan. 31

Apr. 31

July

Oct. 31

Feb. 30

May 30

Aug.

Nov, 30

Mar. 30

June 30

Sept.

Dec. 31

Provided always that in each Leap Year the month of

June shall contain 31 days.

Second. — In every Leap Year the thirty-first day of

June shall be known as Leap Day, and shall be a

public and Bank holiday within the meaning of the

Bank Holidays Act 1871, and shall not — except where

especially mentioned or provided for — be held to be

included in any computation of days made for the

purpose of estimating the amount of any apportionable

payment.

123

124

Third. — Every appointment or fixture falling or
occurring, and every payment or obligation demandable
or prestable, and every period expiring or becoming
completed on the 31st day of any month, which, under
the provisions of the first section hereof, contains
only 30 days, shall be deemed to fall, occur, become
demandable or enforceable, expire, or become completed
on the 30th day of such month, and in general where-
ever in such a case the 31st day of any such month is
specified or referred to, such specification or reference
shall be held to apply to the 30th day of the said
month.

Fourth. — Excepting as provided in section third
hereof, every appointment or fixture falling or occurring,
and every obligation demandable or enforceable, and
every period expiring or becoming completed on any
day of the year identified by the monthly enumeration
hitherto in use, shall be deemed to occur or fall, become
demandable or enforceable, expire or become completed
on the same day of the month by reference to the
monthly enumeration as now amended, notwithstanding
that any such date may, in consequence of such
amendment, happen or fall upon a different day of the
year than as heretofore by enumeration of days from
the first day of the year ; providing always that this
section shall not apply to the dates of the Ephemerides
or other astronomical events dated in the calendar
upon the days of their actual occurrence, but shall apply
to all commemorations, anniversaries, or to the coming
of age of any person or other the like event depending
on the duration of any human life.

125

Fifth, — In every document, whether written,
printed or otherwise visibly expressed which shall be
made or executed after the date when this Act shall
come into operation, every reference to or statement
of any date subsequent to the date aforesaid, shall be
legally understood, interpreted, and enforced in terms
of the provisions herein contained, and so far as
inconsistent with the provisions hereof but no further,
the Statute De Anno bissextili 21st Henry III.; The
Calendar {New Style) Act 1750, and the Act 22
Victoriae, cap. 2, shall be and are hereby repealed.

INDEX

Accounts, simplification of, 26, 53,

105.
Agreement, proposed international, 99.
Anniversaries, unreality of, 68.
Armelin, M., his proposal, 59.
August, how named, 47.
change in length of, 47.

Bill, Calendar Reform, 55.

Calendar Amendment, 58.
Bills of exchange, currency of, 27.
Bissextile, meaning of, 51.
Boston, Congress at, 60.
Brinkley, Archdeacon, on Gregorian
reform, 112.

Caesar, Julius, his reform, 38, 45.

Augustus, 47.
Calendar, Chaldean, 42.

Egyptian, 37.

Greek, 43.

Gregorian, 39.

Jewish, 20, 43.

Julian, 38.

Roman, 21.

essentials of, 34.

luni-solar, 45, 113*

perpetual, 20, 50.
adjustable, 77, 121.

reform of, 49.

symmetrical, 98.

years with identical, 14.
Cardinals, opinion of, 71.
Christmas, date of, 71.
Church, of England, attitude of, 70.

Orthodox, ICX).

of Rome, 71.
Clavius, tables of, 113.
Colleges, how affected, 17.
Comiti permanent ^ 60, 71.
Commerce, Chambers of, 60.

resolutions, 61.
Comte, Auguste, 54.
Congregation of Rites, 71-
Convocation, resolutions of, 70.

Cots worth, Moses B., 54.
Council of Nicea, 39, 65, 109 d/ seqq.
County Councils, sittings of, 17.
Crucifixion, date of, 74, 108.
Cycle, solar, 13, 113 note.

Calippic, 40.

Metonic, 40, 113 note.

Date of Crucifixion, 74, 108.
Dates, memorising of, 81.
Day, how measured, 35.

366th (see also Leap Day), 51, 95,

i02.

. De Anno bissextili statute, 51.
Dies nony meaning of, 50.
objections to, when applied to week,
69 et seqq.

Easter, date of, 107.
disputes as to, 109.
Ecclesiastiral Review y 71.
Ephemerides, date of, II5>
Equation of time, 36.
Equinox, vernal, date of, 103, 1 10.

Fairs, arrangement of, 16, 113.
February, irregularity of, 24, 84, 103.
Flammarion, M. Camille, 58.

Gregorian Calendar, introduction of, 39.
Gregory XIII., Pope, 38, 65, 112.
Grosclaude, Professor, his plan, 59.

Hanin, M., plan of, 59, 99.
Health Insurance Act, how affected, 32.
Holidays, confusion of, 11.
House-letting Act, how affected, 4.

Intercalation, use of, in Rome, 44.
Interest, calculation of, 26, 53, 105.
International Congress, resolutions of,
6l.

Jews, their calendar, 20.
Jours ouvrableSf 92.

126

127

Julius Caesar, 38, 45.
July, how named, 47.

Koppen, Dr W., his plan, 99.

Law Courts, sessions of, 17.

business in, 18.
Leap Day, place of, how determined,
46, 51 note.

treated as dies ncm^ 50.

best place for, 94,
Legrand, M. Canon, quoted, 61.
London, Congress at, 60.

Markets, arrangement of, 16, 113,
Merry del Val, Cardinal, quoted, 72.
Meton, cycle of, 44,
Months, irregular length of, 25.

as measuring a period, 84.

intercalary, 37, 43.

lunar, 43.

readjustment of, 78, 90.

Roman, 44.

symmetric, 90, 98.
Moon, synodic period of, 40, 42.

full, relation to Easter, 113.

Nature quoted, 72, 86.

New Year Day, 90.

Nicea, Council of, 39, 65, 109 ^/ seqq.

Parliament, sessions of, 17.

Act of 1750, 112.
1236, 51.
Passover, Jewish, 108, 1 14.
Pensions Act, how affected, 32.
Period, Julian, 13.
Periodicity, law of, 34.
Philip, A., plan of, 55.

proposal for symmetric calendar, 99.
Pope Gregory XIIL, 38, 65, 112.

Quarta-decimans, 109.
Quarters, irregularity of, 27, 51.

Quarters, advantages of equal, 52.
Quinta-decimans, 109.

Railways, working of, 3.

time-tables, 118.
Reform of calendar, proposals for, 54.

bills for, 55, 58.

objections to, 64.
Rents, calculation of, 26, 53, 105.

Sabbath, Jewish, 20.
Schools, terms of, 17.
Shop Hours Act, 4.
Solar cycle, 13, 113.
Statutes, codi6cation of, 118.
Styles, new and old, 55, 112.
Sunday, a dies non^ 9.

position of, 60, 70, 82, 92.
Swiss Government, their proposed con-
ference, 61.

Terminalia, festival of, 46.
Theodosius, Emperor, 8.
Time, equation of, 36.

nature of, 34.
Trimestre, utility of, 27, u6.
Trumpets, Feast of, 21.

Unemployment, cause of, 3.

Wages, calculation of, 26, 53, 105.
Week, incongruity of, 9.

introduction of, in Roman Empire, 8.

a labour period, 26.

origin of, 48.
Workmen, how benefited by a reformed
calendar, 28.

Year, how measured, 36.
length of, 38.
of Confusion, 38.
a rhythmic, 116.
Christian, the, 69.
leap, 38.
lunar, 43.

PRINl'ED BY NBILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.

Br THE SAME AUTHOR .

A Proposal for a Simplified Calendar

4th Edition. Medium 800. 36 pp.

A Perpetual Adjustable Calendar

The
Dynamic Foundation of Knowledge

Crown 800, 330 pp.

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and Energy' and *The Doctrine of Energy.' What we are really
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of our own activity suggests the existence of something behind
phenomena. The reality which sustains experience is found to
be, in essence, power — power conceived as an energy containing
within itself the principle of its own evolution ; an energy constantly
transmuting itself, and in its transmutations furnishing the entire
presentation of sense. The universal application of this concept
unifies science or the knowledge of nature ; and the dynamic theory
is applied by Mr Philip to life, economics, and education."— Tlii
Times.

" The author of * Matter and Energy ' and of ' The Doctrine of
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volume his theories of a dynamical interpretation of the concept of
matter. ... His reasoning is logical, and for the most part sound ;
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Full text of "The reform of the calendar"

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