Reform of the Calendar.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17437, 24 April 1922, Page 6

Reform of the Calendar.

A month or two ago it was stated that an international conference of astronomers was to meet at Rome during the present month. The fact that no mention of this gathering and its work has yet been cabled out here, so that we do not know whether or not it has met, has probably caused no concern to the man in the street, even if he lias so much as noticed the omission. Astronomy js not a science to which the multitude pay much attention and it is difficult to think of a conference less calculated to excite public interest; than one of astronomers. Yet this particular conference, if, indeed, it is held and if its result is what is expected, will upset one of the established customs of life of hundreds of millions of people. This is the reform of the calendar—of that "mode of adjust- " ing the natural divisions of time with

'' respect to each other for the pur- " pose of civil life," which in the case of England has been in force for nearly two hundred years. The calendar has, of oourse, been corrected on numerous occasions. Long before the Christian era it was tinkered with at different times, and material alterations in the method of calculating the year, the length of the individual months, and so on, have been effected more than once since Julius Csßsar lengthened the year 46 B.C. to 445 days, in order, so to speak, to clear up the muddlo caused by the efforts of previous reformers, and ordered that succeeding years should consist each of 365 days, with an extra day in every fourth year. Some sixteen hundred years later, the minute annual surplus of the solar year over the length of the year established by the Julian calendar having begun to cause confusion, Pope Gregory XIII. cut out ten days and altered the leap years. It was, however, nearly two centuries later before the English people could bring themselves to accept this Papal alteration, and when the Act was passed which made the new year begin on January Ist instead of March 25th and omitted eleven days of September, so as to bring the English calendar into line with the calendar observed by a large part of the Christian population of the world, largo numbers of the uneducated masses broke into riot, demanding the return of the eleven days, as though that much had been cut out of their lives.

No such demonstrations of disapproval are likely to follow the decision of the Conference of Astronomers. What that will be is yet unrevealed. The Conference will have before it at least two schemes and probably a number of others. Of the two referred to, one is the work of a Mr W. Arnold, of London, who proposes, in brief, that the year shall contain, as now, twelve months, grouped in four quarters, of which the first two months shall each consist of 30 days and the third of 31, making the quarter 91 days and the year 364. The 365 th day should be intercalated between December 31st and January Ist, and should be the new Christmas Day, while every fourth year an extra day should be inserted between September 31st and October Ist. The only advantage plainly recognisable in this scheme is that the first day of every year and of every quarter would be Monday and the last day Sunday, while those people who can never remember how many days thero are in any particular month would be afforded some little aid to memory.

A much more ambitious scheme is that of Mr M. B. Ootsworth, of Vancouver, who has been at work for twenty-seven years perfecting what he calls a "Yearal" calendar. This divides the year into thirteen months of 28 days each, every week beginning on Sunday, and every month ending on Saturday, Christmas Day, Easter, and all other festivals and holidays falling every yea;* on the same date, and every year closing on December 22nd, the shortest day in the northern hemisphere. Since thirteen months of twenty-eight days each account for only 364 days, an extra day to be known as "New Year's Day" and legally a "dies "non" would be inserted between the end of one year and the beginning of the next, and similarly every fourth year another dateless day known as " Leap Day" would be inserted somewhere in the summer. It is claimed for the "Yearal" that it "will almost cer- " tainly receive the endorsement of the " International Conference at Rome," and that "an important conference of "Catholic Church dignitaries," which is ta meet subsequently, will also approve of it. A number of leading scientific societies in different part of the world, besides many prominent scientists, public men, bankers, and business men are said to have supported it. It was endorsed by the Canadian Parliament in 1912 and was also under consideration by the Imperial Government when the war broke out The change, if made, cannot come about until 1927, it is explained, because all nautical almanacs have to be printed two or three years ahead and time must also be given to the Parliaments of the world to ratify the,scheme. There will thus be

ample time in which to discuss an innovation which would certainly have the advantage of simplifying the calculation of time and obviating the confusion existing at present in those cities of the Old World in which several calendars are in simultaneous use.