User:Arcorann/The Thirteen-Month Calendar

Front matter

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Introduction

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Contents

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Brief

BRIEF

Resolved: That a change to the thirteen-month calendar should be approved.

Introduction

• I. Action taken in the interests of a reformed calendar make its discussion a timely one.
  • A. The League of Nations has made recommendations for its world-wide study.
  • B. National organizations and individuals in our own and other countries are urging it.
  • C. Pressure is being brought for congressional action.
  • D. The possibility of an international conference in the near future makes it desirable that public opinion should be informed.
• II. The three main plans of change offered are:
  • A. The equalizing of quarters of the year.
  • B. The equalizing of quarters together with one zero day in ordinary years and two in leap years.
  • C. A thirteen-month calendar with intercalary or zero days as in plan "B".
    • 1. This is the plan most widely favored in America.
• III. The essential features of the thirteen-month calendar are:
  • A. Thirteen months of twenty-eight days, or four complete weeks, each.
  • B. Intercalary days without week day name or date, to take care of the extra year day and leap year day.
    • 1. This change would make it perpetual, a single month being the model for all future months and years.
• IV. The issues are:
  • A. Is it desirable to change the calendar at the present time?
  • B. Is the thirteen-month scheme a desirable one?
  • C. Is the thirteen-month plan the best and most practicable plan that can be devised?

Affirmative

• I. Reform of the calendar is called for.
  • A. Our present Gregorian calendar has many serious defects.
    • 1. There are irrational variations in it.
      • a. The months are variable.
        • (1) They contain from 28 to 31 days.
          • (a) There is 11 per cent difference between February and March.
        • (2) They do not contain an equal number of weeks.
          • (a) Split weeks usually mark the beginning and end of each month.
      • b. There is lack of fixity in it.
        • (1) There is non-agreement of day names and dates.
        • (2) It is non-perpetual.
          • (a) It must be consulted for every new week and month.
          • (b) An entirely new calendar is necessary every year.
        • (3) Easter and holidays wander.
          • (a) Easter ranges over a period of five weeks.
          • (b) Holidays and anniversaries wander through all the days of the weeks.
        • (4) Dates of periodical events can never be fixed with precision.
          • (a) Special decisions must be made each year.
  • B. The demands of modern life call for a regularized and efficient calendar.
    • 1. The present cumbersome calendar is a standing source of confusion and misunderstanding.
    • 2. The need is felt to simplify and standardize units of time and other measurements in the most scientific and approved way consonant with modern advance.
    • 3. Increasing need is felt for more exact, accurate, and comparable statistics and records of all kinds.
      • a. Statistical records are becoming an increasingly important factor in social progress.
      • b. Business is becoming more and more dependant upon exact and accurate records.
    • 4. Modern life is becoming increasingly intricate and complex.
  • C. Interest in calendar reform is widely shown.
    • 1. The League of Nations has recommended its serious study with a view to international action.
    • 2. National committees are taking up the subject.
    • 3. Extensive interest and approval has been manifested in economic, scientific, governmental and other groups, as well as among prominent individuals in industrial and public life.
    • 4. Effort has long been made to have a fixed Easter adopted by all Christian churches.
  • D. There is no reason inherent in the calendar that should prevent change.
    • 1. Its status is not sacrosanct.
      • a. It was developed in an arbitrary, capricious, and unscientific manner.
        • (1) It was partly due to superstitious and political considerations.
      • b. We retain it through force of custom and tradition.
      • c. The month has no relation to known facts.
        • (1) It has no relation to anything in astronomy or human experience.
        • (2) It has no religious significance.
        • (3) It has no relation to the weeks.
    • 2. There is ample precedent for a change in the divisions of time.
      • a. Many changes were made repeatedly in early calendars.
      • b. In modern times alone calendar changes have been widespread.
        • (1) In 1582 ten days were dropped from the calendar.
        • (2) In 1752 England and her colonies dropped eleven days.
        • (3) In countries abroad millions of people have come under calendar change since the war.
  • E. A change in the calendar, would be simple, easily made, and feasible.
    • 1. An Act of Congress could be passed stating that it would become effective on a certain date.
    • 2. It would be put into effect at a time that would cause the minimum of disturbance.
      • a. The first year not a leap year to begin on Sunday, which would be 1933.
        • (1) This would give ample time to prepare for the change.
    • 3. The change would not involve social or economic confusion.
      • a. The Act would include adjustment tables and provide that all dates of the old would be automatically changed to specified dates of the new calendar.
      • b. It would provide for the prorating of fixed changes of every kind based on the present division of the year.
      • c. The practical difficulties would be no greater than was connected with the adoption of standard time.
    • 4. Changing the dates of our anniversaries would mean little.
      • a. None of our present anniversaries which date back more than a century and a half now falls on the date on which the event originally occurred.
• II. The proposed thirteen-month calendar is a desirable plan.
  • A. It would correct the outstanding defects of our calendar, and satisfy the main objects of reform.
    • 1. It would regularize the calendar in the most thorough way consonant with the fixed lengths of the year and day.
      • a. It would make the month an exact multiple of the week, and make each month exactly the same length.
        • (1) This change is one of the most marked advantages to be gained in the reform of the calendar.
      • b. It would synchronize dates and week days.
        • (1) The same day of the year would always occur on the same day of the week.
          • (a) The year would always begin on the same day.
          • (b) Holidays would always occur on the same day.
      • c. It would establish a perpetual calendar.
        • (1) The calendar for one month would be good for all succeeding months and years.
        • (a) Every month would be exactly like every other.
  • B. It would bring many marked advantages and benefits.
    • 1. It would be of far-reaching advantage to business.
      • a. It would promote efficiency and economy.
        • (1) It would simplify accounting practices.
          • (a) Do away with laborious calculations, eliminate adjustments made necessary by present calendar in the rendering of reports, comparisons of unequal months, of unequal number or value of working days, etc.
          • (b) Facilitate calculations of interest, business transactions, etc.
          • (c) Do away with confusion where income is on monthly and outgo on weekly basis or vice versa.
        • (2) It would increase the value of statistical work.
          • (a) Do away with inaccurate, misleading, confusing comparisons.
          • (b) Statistical work would probably be rendered 50 per cent more effective.
        • (3) It would reduce expense.
          • (a) Calculations and adjustments would be less costly.
            • x. Clerical work would be reduced.
          • (b) There would be faster turnover of money.
            • x. The same business could be handled with less money.
        • (4) Its advantages have been recognized by many industries in America and Great Britain, which have already adopted a thirteen-month division of the year for accounting and statistical work.
          • (a) It has been in operation in at least two concerns over thirty years.
      • b. The stabilization of Easter would be of far-reaching advantage to industries depending on the Easter trade.
      • c. Only universal adoption would give all the benefits to business.
        • (1) The adoption of a thirteen-month calendar for business while maintaining a twelve-month calendar in civil life, brings the obvious disadvantage of using two calendars.
    • 2. It would be of scientific advantage
      • a. Would add greatly to the value of scientific studies and statistics.
      • b. Many scientists have evinced interest and approval in the proposed reform.
    • 3. It would be of benefit to religion.
      • a. Would fix the date of Easter and other religious holidays.
      • b. Would establish uniform religious observance.
    • 4. Important social advantages would accrue.
      • a. It would facilitate social activities and engagements.
        • (1) Facilitate the fixing of permanent dates for meetings, sessions, schedules, etc.
        • (2) Facilitate the recollection of dates.
      • b. It would make possible the fixing of holidays on Mondays of the week in which they occur.
        • (1) This would extend the week end periods of rest and recreation to two and one-half or three days.
        • (2) It would be of far reaching benefit to health.
        • (3) It would do away with the inconvenience and disorganization of broken weeks both socially and industrially.
      • c. It would be financially beneficial.
        • (1) Would coordinate periods of earning and spending.
        • (2) Would simplify budgeting.
  • C. A thirteen month calendar would be without serious disadvantage.
    • 1. There is no valid objection to thirteen months in place of twelve.
      • a. The objection to the number thirteen is largely founded on superstition
        • (1) This is not sufficient ground for rejecting a reform.
      • b. A thirteen month year is sufficiently divisible for all practical purposes.
        • (1) Quarters and half-years are readily found.
          • (a) They would consist of 13 and 26 weeks respectively.
        • (2) Divisions of the year into large units are less important than months.
          • (a) Accounts and reports for quarters and half-years are less important and less frequent than for the months.
          • (b) Divisions into thirds and sixths of the year are of relatively small importance.
      • c. That thirteen months is not a scientific division is not material.
        • (1) No exact division of the year is possible under the present year and week length.
        • (2) A change should in any case be practical rather than scientific.
    • 2. There is no sound objection to intercalary days which would occasionally break the seven-day succession of Sabbaths.
      • a. The observance of the seven-day week in Europe dates back only to Constantine the Great.
      • b. As indicated in Pamphlet "C" of the International Fixed Calendar League inserted days are sanctioned by Mosaic law.
      • c. The occasional observance of two Sundays in succession would not, to all practical purposes, break the seven-day succession of a day of rest.
      • d. From a scientific standpoint days are lost or gained in travel over the international date line.
      • e. The intercalary day principle has wide support.
        • (1) It has been suggested in most of submitted plans for reform.
        • (2) It is contained in two of the three plans retained by the League of Nations after its analysis of plans.
        • (3) It is largely preferred to the intercalary week principle, which would also establish a perpetual calendar.
        • (a) An intercalary week would further throw the week out of balance.
    • 3. The inconvenience to be caused by a change should not operate against its adoption.
      • a. Any change in the calendar would cause inconvenience for a time in some quarter.
    • 4. Most of the objections to the thirteen month calendar are merely sentimental and would disappear if the plan were adopted.
• III. The thirteen-month calendar is the best available plan as a unit of the time measurement for the calendar.
  • A. The equalizing of quarters scheme is not as acceptable as the thirteen-month plan.
    • 1. It is not sufficiently thorough.
      • a. It merely evens up quarter years so far as may be possible.
      • b. If a reform is considered at all it should be thorough and lasting.
    • 2. It does not establish equality between months.
      • a. Months of thirty and thirty-one days are provided.
    • 3. It does not establish an exact relation between weeks and month.
      • a. With one exception the months contain a few days over four full weeks.
      • b. First and last weeks may still be split weeks.
    • 4. It does not establish synchronization of days and dates, unless intercalary days are adopted in this scheme as in the thirteen month plan.
      • a. Even when the intercalary day plan is included, the correspondence is only between days and dates of the first, second, or third months of each quarter.
    • 5. It has fewer advantages for statistical work and comparability.
    • 6. It does not remedy certain disadvantages to business.
      • a. Split week payrolls and expenses.
      • b. The different number and value of specific days.
        • (1) Months of five Saturdays or five Sundays, etc.
      • 7. It does not have such large support, especially in our country.
  • B. No other plan will, at this time, meet the need for reform.
    • 1. No other has important support and approval.
    • 2. No more radical reform is desirable.
      • a. Changing the week length.
      • b. Changing the beginning or length of the year.
      • c. Changing the year into months of considerably different lengths.
    • 3. No minor reforms are worth disturbing chronology to attain.
  • C. It is questionable whether any further plan will be devised which is better adapted to an improved calendar than the present scheme.
    • 1. The subject has already had wide and long study by persons most competent to judge it.

NEGATIVE

• I. It is uncalled for and unwise to institute any radical reform of the calendar at the present time.
  • A. There are deep-seated reasons for retaining the present calendar unchanged.
    • 1. It is sanctified by tradition, long usage, and widespread establishment.
    • 2. It has met our needs for time measurement very well, with perhaps the exception of the February irregularity.
      • a. It has maintained the year at scientifically accurate length.
      • b. It has maintained the seasons in their proper relation to the year.
    • 3. Any change should be long and well-considered before being made.
      • a. It should be made only for the weightiest reasons and widespread benefits.
      • b. It should be made only after exhaustive study to determine conclusively the best change.
        • (1) When made, a change should be final for all time.
  • B. A change in the calendar would entail great inconvenience and confusion.
    • 1. It would dislocate world chronology.
      • a. For a time it would throw out all dates in relation to events and records.
        • (1) It would cause great practical difficulty in adjusting the new and the old.
    • 2. Other great complications and expense would be involved in making the change.
      • a. It would cause change and confusion in regard to all anniversary dates, birthdays, holidays, and other fixed events.
      • b. It would be necessary to use two calendars for a considerable time.
  • C. A change would be neither simple nor feasible.
    • 1. To be feasible it would have to be adopted simultaneously by all leading countries.
      • a. Any divergence would renew difficulties in international intercourse due to different chronological reckoning.
      • b. It is doubtful if those countries which have recently adopted calendar change would be disposed to make a second change in the near future.
    • 2. It would have to be acceptable to all important groups in our own country.
      • a. Religious, administrative, economic, scientific, etc.
    • 3. It would have to be approved by the various states in our country.
      • a. It is questionable whether the Federal government has the constitutional power to bind the states to a change of time.
    • 4. Any dissenting country, state, or group would make inevitable the confusion and drawback of the use of two calendars.
  • D. A perfect calendar cannot be established.
    • 1. There is no perfect correlation between a year, months, weeks, and days.
    • 2. The length of the year is fixed and cannot be changed.
      • a. It is based upon the relation of the sun to the equinox.
    • 3. There is no likelihood that the week can be changed.
      • a. Custom, antiquity, and religious practice are too firmly against it.
    • 4. The length of the day cannot be changed.
  • E. The extent of sentiment for a change is doubtful.
    • 1. There is as yet no definite public demand for it.
      • a. Public opinion in the mass in our own and other countries is probably little cognizant of the problem and its merits or demerits.
      • b. Few groups relatively have expressed themselves.
    • 2. The support given the movement is preponderantly commercial and economic.
    • 3. The fact that many organizations and individuals have registered approval of it indicates little.
      • a. Resolutions of approval may be dictated by a minority in control, or without proper canvas of membership.
      • b. Approval may register mere opinion rather than sound study.
    • 4. Propaganda has influenced much of the discussion.
• II. The proposed thirteen month calendar is not a wise or desirable scheme.
  • A. There are serious objections to a thirteen month division of the year.
    • 1. From the practical standpoint thirteen is a prime number and not divisible.
      • a. The year would be divisible only by broken months.
        • (1) Halves, quarters, thirds and sixths would be 6½, 3¼, 4⅓, and 2⅙ months respectively.
      • b. By even weeks it is divisible only into the half and quarter year.
        • (1) Twenty-six and 13 weeks would constitute a half and a quarter year.
        • (2) A third of the year would be 17⅓ weeks and a sixth would be 8⅔ weeks.
      • c. Such a principle of division is entirely foreign to our practice in constructing tables of interrelated units.
    • 2. There would be appreciable prejudice against the proposed division.
      • a. The number thirteen is subject to more or less widespread superstition.
        • (1) However irrational to modern thought this opposition could not be overlooked.
        • (2) In addition to thirteen months under the proposed plan, Friday the 13th would occur every month.
  • B. There are serious objections to a calendar which would contain one or more intercalary or blank days.
    • 1. It would be a radical and unwarranted change.
      • a. It would invalidate the prime reason for which a calendar exists.
        • (1) It would interrupt the continuity and accuracy of time reckoning.
          • (a) We can have no exact date unless we include these omitted days.
      • b. The blank day principle would break time-honored and unbroken succession of the seven-day week.
        • (1) In all past changes of the calendar the seven-day sequence of the week has been religiously maintained.
          • (a) Changes in the month have been made to correct the length of the year, but they have not altered the week.
    • 2. It would be an unwarranted interference with religious practices.
      • a. All who hold to a strict observance of a seventh day Sabbath or a seven-day week from Sunday to Sunday would have their observance still further complicated.
        • (1) In the course of the years the true Sabbath would wander through every day of the week.
      • b. Any attempt to introduce intercalary days without the practical concurrence of religionists would result in confusion.
        • (1) It would bring about divisions in the church between those who strictly interpret the sevenday week and those who do not.
  • C. The intercalary week as a substitute for intercalary days would be objectionable.
    • 1. It would throw the calendar further out of position with relation to the tropical year.
      • a. Under the intercalated week the range over a small number of years would be a week, and over a large number of years would be eleven days.
        • (1) With the present calendar this range for any one year is a day only, and for even a long period of years is less than two days.
      • b. The odd week would complicate matters and create confusion far more than would the extra day.
  • D. The beneficial effects of the proposed thirteen month calendar are exaggerated.
    • 1. The so-called benefits of a perpetual calendar are overrated.
      • a. Synchronization of day and date are in no way essential.
        • (1) It answers every social need to consult the calendar or fix the approximate time or date.
      • b. A perpetual calendar would in any case not be attained if we are always dropping out dates for intercalary days.
    • 2. It is not essential to have months multiples of weeks.
      • a. What is mainly sought is to have as nearly equal units as possible and invariability in time reckoning.
    • 3. The advantages to business are overrated.
      • a. Efficiency and economy are overrated.
        • (1) There would be thirteen accounting and settlement periods, with their added expense.
        • (2) In general a greater number of adjustments would be required in comparing past statistics and dates than under the present calendar.
        • (3) Accounting by months is more important than by groups of weeks.
          • (a) Many business obligations are made to run for three, six, or nine months.
          • (b) Interest and dividends are frequently payable quarterly, semi-annually, or even six times a year.
      • b. The disturbance of statistical accuracy is not obviated.
        • (1) Extra-calendar days would still upset exact comparisons.
          • (a) A vast amount of activity would go on notwithstanding the implied blankness.
          • (b) The zero days must be reflected in one month or another, which is thus thrown out of exact comparability with others.
        • (2) Holidays would continue to affect comparability.
          • (a) They would occur in some months and weeks but not in others.
        • (3) Confusion caused by floating Sabbaths would still further complicate records.
          • (a) They would be observed to a more or less extent in various localities.
        • (4)} Statistics are frequently non-comparable in units of less than a year in any case.
          • (a) There are important variations in the months and through the seasons, which tend to average themselves only in the course of the year.
      • c. Other business disturbances would be brought about.
        • (1) Litigation over dates and settlements.
      • d. The proposed change would merely carry standardization in business to a fault.
    • 4. The importance of the proposed calendar to science is exaggerated.
      • a. Only a relatively few scientists have expressed themselves definitely in favor of reform.
      • b. Those who consider the desirability of reform are interested primarily in a regularized calendar.
        • (1) They desire accurate statistics.
        • (2) There is no general agreement upon a specific plan by which it is to be attained.
          • (a) They are willing to accept the thirteen month calendar if it is the best regularized calendar that can be put over.
    • 5. The social and general advantages are overrated.
      • a. There would be little or no appreciable gain in correlating social life with exact periods of the calendar.
      • b. The fixing of holidays on Mondays has no essential relation to the thirteen month plan that could not be brought about under the present calendar.
        • (1) We could, if we felt the change called for, establish holidays on Mondays of the weeks in which they occur, just as holidays now falling on Sunday are frequently observed on Monday.
    • 6. The fixing of Easter is relatively unimportant.
      • a. It is of concern mainly to churchmen and the Easter trade.
• III. The thirteen month calendar is not the best devisable calendar scheme.
  • A. The present calendar has many advantages.
    • 1. It has every advantage of wide and uniform use.
    • 2. It is as astronomically correct as is devisable under the present year, day and week length.
  • B. If any changes are desired they can be attained without the widespread inconvenience and confusion that will result from the change to thirteen months with minimum change and upheaval.
    • 1. The restoring of February to its original length would tend to equalize the months and do away with the great outstanding objection to the variability of the months.
    • 2. A more thorough change could be attained by equalizing the quarters.
      • a. The months in each quarter could be uniformly 30, 30, 31 days, or 31, 30, 30 days.
        • (1) The extra year day and leap year day can be distributed so as to equalize the half years in leap year, and in ordinary years would make merely a day's difference.
          • (a) This difference cannot be disregarded in any calendar, since even intercalated days must be considered in all practical affairs.
      • b. The equalizing of quarters would stand a better chance of adoption both at home and abroad.
        • (1) Less opposition would be encountered.
          • (a) It is less radical.
        • (2) It is more favored abroad than the thirteen month calendar.
  • C. All the essential objects of reform can be attained under the present calendar, or with the above suggested changes.
    • 1. More exact comparability of statistics and uniform records.
      • a. It is absurd to indicate that records are not reasonably comparable.
        • (1) Trends are readily apparent to experts.
  • D. If other objects of reform are desired they can be attained under the twelve month division.
    • 1. A perpetual calendar can be attained.
      • a. Intercalary days have been suggested under the equal quarter plan exactly as under the thirteen month plan.
        • (1) Under this a quarter year would be a model for all subsequent quarters.
      • b. A perpetual and synchronized calendar could be attained with intercalary weeks every five or six years.
        • (1) This would do away with objections to zero days and the breaking of the seven-day week.
    • 2. A fixed Easter can be included under the twelve month plan as well as under thirteen months.
      • a. It could be fixed for the second Sunday of April, or any more desirable time.
      • b. It is an ecclesiastical and not a civil question and in any case would have to be settled independently by the churches.
    • 3. A special subsidiary calendar could be used purely for purposes of industry and statistics, where felt desirable.
      • a. This is done at the present time.
      • b. The use of a special statistical calendar apart from the civil calendar causes little practical inconvenience.
      • b. It is illogical to assume that world chronology should be upset merely for the convenience of statistics and business.
    • 4. The only thing that cannot be attained under the twelve month calendar as well as under the thirteenth month is to have a single month the model for all months, and the month an exact multiple of weeks, uniformly.
  • E. Many suggestions for other changes have been submitted that at any rate should have adequate publicity and thorough discussion before being eliminated, if a change should be thought desirable.
    • 1. That the League Committee eliminated other plans is not conclusive.
      • a. A calendar change is too important a step to be determined by the findings of a small committee.

Bibliography

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General Discussion

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THE JOINTS OF TIME^[1]

The reason that the year begins on January 1 is a "pretty reason," as Lear's poor fool would say. Julius Cæsar, when he reformed the calendar in the year 46 B.C., evidently had in mind to begin the year with the shortest day. The winter solstice at Rome occurred in that year on the twenty-fourth of December of the Julian calendar; consequently the first day of the year would have fallen on December 25. But he delayed it seven days out of regard for prevailing customs and the superstitions of the people. As they had been accustomed to a lunar calendar, they would be better satisfied if the first year of the new calendar came in with the new moon. Accordingly the mean new moon was carefully computed and the new calendar had its beginning on the first of January, 45 B.C., at sixteen minutes past six in the afternoon.

Among all peoples, in all ages, it has been the custom to start the year, whether civil or ecclesiastical, with either the winter or summer solstice or the vernal or autumnal equinox. These times seem to mark the natural beginnings for reckoning the circuit of the seasons. The result of Cæsar's little stroke of diplomacy is that our year now has no relation to astronomic fact or logical reason. It has relation only to superstitions and political considerations which no longer exist. The history of the calendar is a struggle between human nature and arithmetic, the former not wanting to give in to the conclu-

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sions of the latter. This history, philosophically considered, not only serves to give us our bearings with regard to the problem of time measurement, but is a subject of considerable interest in itself.

A year consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45.51 seconds. From the standpoint of one who is trying to equip the universe with some practical system of time measurement, this sort of year is manifestly ridiculous. In a practical system of measurement each larger unit should be exactly divisible by the smaller unit next below it.

A month has a mean length of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.7 seconds. This is equally absurd. We cannot very well deal with months and years which begin and end with such utter disregard of the smaller units that we have these fractions of a day on our hands.

What, then, is a day, let us ask. That it is not an acknowledged part of a month or a year is a fact which the above figures make sufficiently plain. Nature did not intend it to be such. A day is a day. It is sufficient unto itself, and it is wholly unconcerned about any other unit of time.

In a foot there are a certain number of inches of equal size; and in a bushel the pecks are of like content. But what is a month? There are said to be twelve months in a year, but this statement means little when you consider that the months do not fit into the year except by being altered to a variety of sizes!

As man did not make days, months, and years he is not, of course, to be held accountable for them. But he did make hours, minutes, and seconds, and so it would seem that as a matter of convenience and common sense he would have chosen such smaller time units as would fit in with and be a common divisor of the units already established. And no doubt he would have done so if he could. But evidently there were difficulties in the way; for when we state the length of a year or of a month in

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fractions of a second we are simply saying that these larger units are not divisible into any sort of time that man has been able to discover or invent.

Doing as best he could, man divided the day into parts which were equal but which fitted nothing further; and while his work might seem careless, inconsistent, and entirely incompetent, it is not so bad by comparison. For neither do days fit into months, nor months into years, nor years into any astronomical cycle which the heavens exhibit. It is all as bad as our English system of weights and measures; and the whole world knows how illogical and inconsistent and altogether incompetent that is.

Contrary to what any mortal member of any academy would expect, the heavens are not constructed on the metric system! They do not countenance or make possible any such mechanical notions of perfection upon the part of man. Consequently the time is out of joint; and as man is a measuring and record-keeping animal there has been constant challenge to his intellect to set it right.

The whole truth of the matter is that Nature has offered us three different standards of time measurement—the day, the month, and the year. We have got to make a choice and abide by it. We may not accept them all as if they were harmonious facts and parts of a heavenly clockwork. That is just what they are not. Sun and moon revolve and rotate as they please; each is true to its own appointments. But the sun takes no care that years shall be divisible into months; and neither does the sun or moon time its evolutions to fit in with that standard of measurement which we call a day.

And this is a fact which is totally unacceptable to the mind of man. There is something about it which is obnoxious to human nature. If man, instead of God, had made the universe he would surely have made months that were exactly divisible into the year. This is a safe assertion in view of the fact that for ages he stuck to the moon as a standard of measurement while at the same

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time he tried to drive the chariot of the sun. We like to think that the universe is all working together, cogged and clocklike, with wheels that are proper multiples of one another—the whole acting as one big time system. If it is not so, then it ought to be so, and it is for us to bring the stars into harmony.

Of course there is but one way. That is to assume that they rotate and revolve thus and so. Consequently we have made the year a convenient length; and we have invented a system of leap years, leap months, and leap centuries to put us periodically into step with the facts. Finding ourselves compelled to deal in fractions of a day, we borrow from time, or extend credit to it, and then set things approximately right on a clearing-house system. We save up our scraps of time till we have enough to make a day, and we add it to a year; but as this is too liberal we pause once in a hundred years to take a day back; and as this is just a little too parsimonious we remember every four-hundredth year not to take the day that was coming to us. And for this temporizing with time we are hardly to be blamed. For the day and the year are each important to us; and when each insists upon being the sole standard of measurement, what else are we going to do about it?

Up to the time when our present form of calendar was adopted, all peoples, with the exception of the Egyptians, went strictly by the moon. A month was a month, an average duration of 29½ days; and it was of no very vital concern to them that twelve of those months amounted to only 354 days instead of a proper year.

To a people adopting a form of calendar the exact length of the year seems to be of no great importance. The year, with its four seasons, is supposed to bring a progressive change of climate; but when we consider that mere spells of weather make irruptions upon the seasonable climate and set the year backward or forward by days and weeks, an astronomer's information as to the

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exact number of days in a year would seem to be of mere academic interest.

But an exact foreknowledge of the phases of the moon is of immediate and practical importance. Besides lighting the way for travelers and holy pilgrims, and thus making itself of prime importance in the regulations of religion and commerce, the moon was so obvious a timepiece, and so easily determined in its comings and goings, that it naturally became the first standard of measurement. A discrepancy of a week or two between twelve lunar months and the length of a solar year would appear to make no great difference in practical life.

But such a discrepancy is cumulative. The error keeps growing; it adds to itself year after year; and pretty soon it amounts to months. The inevitable result is that the months rotate through the seasons. And no people, whether herdsmen or planters, can afford to go by dates that are completely out of harmony with the solar year.

It was a puzzling prospect that opened up before the eyes of our forefathers when, after much effort to construct a satisfactory calendar, they discovered the true nature of the difficulty. They made use of months that lasted from moon to moon; but no particular number of moons fitted into a year! When they tried twelve there was a considerable remainder of time which that twelvemonth did not fill out; consequently, their first month of the year, starting eleven days before the actual solar year was ended, would cause a falling behind of the season with regard to the supposed date. Each year would fall farther behind, the result being that the months revolved rapidly through the year. The practical effect of this was that a winter holiday, such as our Christmas, would get around to midsummer; and all the while they were carefully observing its month and date! And a summer festival would work its way, perforce, to the middle of winter! This was very embarrassing. It not only made

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an undesirable state of affairs with regard to religious and other holidays, but it was confusing to the planter, a certain day of the month meaning nothing in his line of endeavor.

This harassing state of affairs prevailed among the early Greeks and Romans and troubled the mind of the world generally. It continued to work confusion at Rome up to the time the present form of calendar was adopted. When Julius Cæsar took over the solar year from the Egyptians, computed time at Rome had gained eighty days on actual time. And yet the priests had been accustomed to throwing an extra month into the year whenever it seemed to need it, after the manner of a crew dressing the ballast in a ship.

One might easily suggest that, if a lunar twelvemonth is eleven days short of the actual year, it would only be necessary to add these eleven days to the end of the year or distribute them among the months. This suggestion is really foolish. It would put the month out of step with the moon; and what use would a lunar calendar be in that case? It must be borne in mind that a calendar must go absolutely by the moon or absolutely by the sun, else it will run completely astray and be no calendar at all. The ancients managed very cleverly so far as the moon was concerned. A complete lunation is approximately 29½ days. Their months therefore had twentynine and thirty days alternately. By following this rule strictly they struck an average that kept in close step with the moon and only needed a day thrown in at long intervals to correct the slight error. This was the practice of the Greeks. The problem was to find a way to correct this calendar to correspond with the annual journey of the sun and yet not get out of step with the moon. They could have lunar months which rambled through the seasons in a most confusing way, or they could have a year which was fairly true to the sun, but with months that had no relation to the moon. And it is not in human nature to be satisfied with either.

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BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF CALENDAR PERIODS AND REFORM MOVEMENTS^[2]

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LEAGUE OF NATIONS' REPORT^[3]

Before submitting its conclusions, the Committee feels that it should point out the main, and undisputed, defects of the present Gregorian calendar, i.e.:

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WEEK OR MONTH AS INTERMEDIATE TIME UNIT^[4]

The suggestion of the week and the month as a subject for discussion before the Royal Statistical Society arises from two circumstances. 'The first is that, in the course of last year, the Chief of the United States Weather Bureau announced that the Bureau was in possession of observations of weather in the United States carried on systematically by automatic records, or eye-observations twice daily at least, for a period now nearing fifty years. The Bureau naturally wished to make up its mind as to the best method of grouping the observations for statistical purposes before embarking upon the vast task of presenting the results as a representation of the climates of the United States. The solution suggested by Dr. Marvin, the Chief of the Bureau, is to employ the week of seven days, extended to eight days for one week (or for two weeks in leap year) and to group the weeks into fortnights or "months" of four weeks.

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DEVICES FOR MAKING STATEMENTS AND STATISTICS TRULY COMPARATIVE^[5]

Five different methods are being used by concerns to overcome the defects which have been indicated. Each one of these methods will be discussed showing the advantages and disadvantages.

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THREE PLANS^[6]

The most desirable change which can be made with the least dislocation of our present calendar, and which is incorporated in most of the proposed methods of reform, would be to have the same day of the year always fall on the same day of the week. As there are 52

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weeks plus one day in a year of 365 days, and plus two days in a leap year, by adding this extra day or days, and not considering or designating them a day of the week or month, every day of the year will always fall on the same day of the week.

New Year's day, which is observed as a commercial holiday in nearly every part of the civilized world, seems to be by general consent the one best adapted to be made the non-week day in every year. There is not the same agreement in the proposals, however, as to the position in the calendar which Leap Year day, the extra non-week-day in leap year, is to occupy. It seems extremely desirable that it should be the last day of the year. Only in this way can the proposed "fixed calendar" deserve the name. To place it following New Year's day, or between the end of June and the first of July, as has been frequently suggested, would alter the position in the calendar of every day following it in that year, and one of the greatest advantages of a fixed calendar in astronomical and nautical calculations, banking and other reckonings, would be lost.

To have a second extra day during the holiday season at New Year's should be acceptable to all nationalities, while a holiday of no religious or commemorative significance in the middle of the year, would be both inconvenient in the commercial world, and interrupt a busy season in the industrial world. Placed in the holiday season as the last of the year, and therefore next to the other non-week-day, New Year's day, it will also make each half of a leap year the same length, 183 days. "Leap Year day" should undoubtedly be the last day of the year, no matter what other reform is adopted.

Having disposed in the above way of the extra day or days in the year over the even 52 weeks, the same day of the year will in future always fall on the same day of the week, and it only remains to consider how best to subdivide these 364 days into months. Of the methods

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OTHER PROPOSALS FOR REFORM^[7]

The international fixed calendar plan. Proposed by Moses B. Cotsworth, F. G. S., F. S. A., F. C. A., of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Liberty Calendar plan. This plan provides for the setting apart of New Year day in each year and making it an independent legal holiday, which is not included in any week or month. Also, the setting apart of the extra day in leap years as leap day and likewise making it an independent legal holiday. It further provides that each seventh day shall become leap year Sunday.

It further provides for the omission of such other leap year days as shall be necessary to harmonize the calendar year with the true solar year. It divides the remaining 364 days of each year into 13 months of four complete weeks of seven days each, beginning each week with Monday.

Swiss plan. This plan sets aside each New Year's day and each leap year day as independent legal holidays, and provides for the omission of leap year day in all centennial years the number of which is not a multiple of 400. This plan divides the remaining 364 days into four quarters of 91 days each, each quarter containing one month of 31 days and two months of 30 days.

This plan was proposed and advocated in the convention by Dr. A. F. Beal, of the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C.

John Robertson plan (first Scottish plan). This plan also sets aside New Year's day and leap year day as independent legal holidays. It then provides that the first two months of each quarter shall contain four weeks each, while the third month of each quarter shall

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INTERCALATED WEEK^[8]

The present projected reform of the calendar is essentially different from the Gregorian one of 1582. Then there was question of cementing the calendar year closely to the solar year. For this purpose it was necessary merely to correct the Julian period of leap years. This was done in such a happy way that the error, which can never be avoided in any system, amounts to scarcely one whole day in three thousand years. The present desideratum is not a correction of this error, but a greater uniformity within the calendar year itself. The same days of the month are to fall on the same days of the week. As to whether this is an elegant or inelegant procedure, this is not the place to decide. There is question merely of testing the ways and means of effecting it.

In the library of the Vatican Observatory there is a special case devoted to the numberless schemes for the reform of the calendar, that have been sent to this supposed central station since the World War. These schemes are not less divergent than were the answers of four centuries ago of emperors, kings, dukes, learned men, academies and universities, that were sent to the Commission of the Gregorian Calendar.

With one exception to be detailed later, all the new calendars agree upon one point only, and that is upon the insertion of blind or blank or zero days, or days that are not to belong to any week. As the solar year is about one and a quarter days longer than a full number of weeks, the new calendar, if it is to be a year of weeks, will have each year one day over and in leap years two. What is to be done with these supernumerary days? The simplest remedy, one that by-the-way called for the least

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OBJECTIONS TO INTERCALATED WEEK^[9]

In the collection and discussion of meteorological and many other statistics, "monthly means" play an important part. Although the irregular calendar month is not, for scientific purposes, an ideal subdivision of the year, its faults are not sufficient to outweigh the advantages of a unit so familiar to the general public. These monthly means, would, however, lose all their significance, if the calendar month did not, year after year, remain in nearly the same position relative to the tropical year. With the present calendar the range of this position for any one month is a day only, over a short period of years, except at the end of a century, when it may be nearly two days, and even over a long period of years it is less than two days. A range of this size is unavoidable, and is not large enough to affect very materially the value of monthly statistics.

Under the scheme of intercalated weeks, however, the range over even a small number of years would be a week, while at the middle or end of a century it would be eleven days (or even seventeen, but as regards this point see below), and the range over a large number of years would be eleven days. There would, moreover, be an odd week of statistics every fifth year, which could not be as easily disposed of as is the odd day in leap year at present. The present convenient system of collecting and presenting data by calendar months would have to

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be given up, at any rate in the case of climatological and other scientific statistics, and suitable units chosen, with reference not to the calendar, but to the tropical year. This would not only entail much additional work in the preparation of these figures, but would greatly diminish their value to the general public.

Searle's scheme could not fail to cause much inconvenience, too, in ordinary business life. For example, is the same yearly rent to be paid for a house or for business premises, over a year of 53 weeks as over one of 52? Will a man on a yearly salary receive the same for 52 weeks as for 53? His expenses will be appreciably higher in leap year. I can foresee difficulties, too, with the income-tax collector, regarding the assessment of the yearly profits of a business. An extra day in leap year might be passed over without adjustment, but hardly an extra week.

Where accounts are kept, and salaries paid, monthly, the extra week would also tend to complicate matters, and to create confusion.

It might be objected, that the present calendar months vary in length among themselves, and that, nevertheless, no difficulty is experienced in keeping monthly accounts, or in paying monthly salaries. Why then should there be any difficulty in variable years? But over a very few months, the variation in the length of a month practically averages out, while it would take five years to average out the variation in the year.

I cannot see that these objections to an intercalated week are in any way balanced by the merely sentimental advantage of unbroken weeks, plus perhaps a slight advantage to historians of the future in checking their dates. No reform of the calendar can be considered satisfactory, which varies the length of the calendar year, or its position relative to the tropical year, more than the minimum absolutely necessary.

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IMPORTANCE OF UNIVERSAL APPEAL^[10]

The importance of a uniform and simple calendar is not a question which affords any ground for dispute. Whether regarded from the point of view of the chronologist, striving to evolve order out of regnal years and intercalary months, or from that of a business man in Cairo, transacting affairs with clients who adhere severally to the Moslem, the Coptic, the Hebrew, the Julian, and the Gregorian calendars, the diversity of system from time to time, from place to place, and between creed and creed, is an exasperating and unmixed misfortune. The New Year festival is celebrated by the motley races which go to make up the population of Singapore on dates which extend over several months. In Constantinople, until quite recently, even the division of the day was a source of grave inconvenience, since the day ended at local sunset. The persistence of such anomalies shows how hard is the way of the reformer. Tradition and religious scruple, and even the mere inertia of custom, are leagued against him. From the point of view of the whole world, a far greater advance would be made by any large step towards the adoption of one universal calendar than by making small theoretical improvements in a particular system, however important that system may be. Whatever happens, it is certain that the Gregorian calendar in its main features will survive. For this reason alone its reform is not to be lightly undertaken. A universal appeal can only be based on fixity of tenure as a necessary condition. The French Republican calendar should at least be useful as an awful example. Changes in our calendar can only be admitted after their necessity has been absolutely proved, and then only with the utmost deliberation. It is not a matter in which a false step can be easily retraced.

Affirmative Discussion

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CALENDAR REFORM^[11]

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CALENDAR CHANGE^[12]

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IMPORTANCE TO GOVERNMENT^[13]

In contrast to the individual business viewpoint let us consider for a moment what the proposed change would mean to the biggest and most comprehensive business of all, namely, the governments of the civilized countries of the world. Take the United States government, for instance, undoubtedly the "biggest business" in existence. Consider its Department of Commerce which, under Secretary—now President-elect—Hoover, has been furnishing the business world with weekly and monthly information on conditions and trends both here and abroad—a service which has had a large part in building up the stability and prosperity of the nation and which, in view of the enormous expansion of business in recent years, is already faced with the need of providing even more exact information than it has hitherto been able to provide. And this more exact service cannot be completely rendered until the sources of information of the Department of Commerce are based upon a calendar in which, in the words of Doctor Burgess, Director of the Bureau of Standards, "nominally equivalent periods of time are actually equal and comparable." The lack of such a calendar seriously inflates monthly export and import totals, because of our unevenly recurring twenty-ninth, thirtieth and thirty-first days and the consequent fifth Saturdays and Mondays which inflate totals as much as 10 to 13 per cent.

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SCIENCE NEEDS THE THIRTEEN-MONTH CALENDAR^[14]

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Negative Discussion

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INTEREST OF THE ACCOUNTANT IN CALENDAR REFORM^[15]

The subject of calendar reform is one to which considerable attention is being given at the present time. It has apparently reached the somewhat dangerous stage when articles of the type appearing in the Sunday magazines are being written regarding it, for the purpose of creating public sentiment in favor of some change which, merely by virtue of its departure from established custom, can be heralded as a reform irrespective of its nature or consequences.

The present calendar, however, is so closely interwoven with a multitude of the details of our modern civilization that no change should be contemplated without serious consideration of its every aspect. It is a matter concerning which accountants should have a very definite opinion, and the expression of that opinion should make itself heard in the council chambers where the question of calendar reform is being discussed.

It is significant that the Babson organization regards the adoption of the thirteen-month year as practically the inevitable outcome of the present deliberations. Accountants should, therefore, be prepared to discuss the necessary implications of this plan and to indicate to their clients what results may be expected to accrue to them individually from its adoption. They should also express and give reasons for their preference for any

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It must have come as a surprise, possibly a shock, to many to learn that we may shortly be asked to suffer all the inconvenience and confusion of a catastrophic alteration in the calendar on grounds which seem altogether trivial. In the first place, the calendar months now in use have by long association become enshrined in literature as the very impersonation of definite stages in the seasonal progression and retrogression of natural phenomena, and it would be sheer vandalism to break this association, and renounce our literary heritage, without far graver practical cause than can possibly be shown.

In the second place, every calendar system must be framed with reference to the four natural landmarks of the year, namely, the solstices and equinoxes, and it is eminently desirable that the two solstices, and the two equinoxes, which stand opposite one another in the natural year, should not be assigned dates which are unsymmetrically disposed to one another. In the proposed system of thirteen months, the solstices would stand 6½ months or time-units apart, instead of a whole number as in the present system, and no month would be located diametrically opposite another as at present, viz. December to June, March to September, and so on, along the

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earth's orbit round the sun. This arrangement would offend the artistic sense of any one with a vivid appreciation of the fact that our fundamental division of time, the year, is not an arbitrary unit but one based on a grand cycle of Nature.

Thirdly, it is said that meteorologists and astronomers would welcome months with equal numbers of days, and no doubt they would, one and all, if they could order everything to perfection. But apart from the labour that would be involved in preserving the continuity of the climatological record, involving the translation of one calendar into the other, think of the confusion that would arise in making comparisons between two systems which both have the same names of months! We should be perpetually having to think and specify whether it is the old January or the new January we are considering, and so forth. It would be just as though, when the new barometer unit the millibar was instituted to replace the inch, the name "inch" had been retained for the new division. Far better would it be to have an entirely new set of calendar names so that the old names would retain their habitual meanings. It is always open to astronomers and meteorologists to invent a system for any special technical purpose for which it may be required; but probably not many of them would take the narrow view and wish to disorganise the world on that account.

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MEMORANDUM AGAINST RECOMMENDATIONS^[16]

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REFORM OF THE CALENDAR^[17]

The only way of making a really satisfactory reform of the calendar, and one to which I think indeed many people have aspired in the past without much success, is to accelerate the sun and retard the moon. If one could only make the year 360 days and the lunar month 30 days, the consideration of an ideal calendar would be a very simple proceeding. The question of the calendar might be regarded as primarily an astronomical one or an ecclesiastical one, but nobody who has had to do with meteorological statistics can be indifferent to any

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OBJECTIONS TO CALENDAR REFORM^[18]

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PERPETUAL CALENDAR^[19]

1. From article by Charles D. Stewart, Hartford, Wisconsin. Atlantic Monthly. 137:10–22. January, 1926.
2. From Article Brief Chronology of Calendar Periods. Congressional Digest. 8:97–8. April, 1929, with additions from the National Committee on Calendar Simplification and other sources.
3. From League of Nations. Special Committee of Enquiry into the Reform of the Calendar. Geneva. 1926.
4. From paper by Sir Napier Shaw, Sc.D., F.R.S., before the Royal Statistical Society, May 19, 1925, Royal Statistical Society. Journal. 88:489–97. July, 1925.
5. From Folsom, M. B. Devices for Making Statements and Statistics Truly Comparative. p. 5–8. American Management Association. New York. 1927.
6. From article Reform of the Calendar, by Carl Reinhardt, Cobalt, Ontario, Canada. Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Journal. 16:105–11, March, 1922.
7. From Eleven plans submitted to the first national convention in the United States to discuss the reform of the calendar, held at Washington, D. C., February 7 and 8, 1922. United States, House. Committee on the Judiciary. Modification of the calendar: hearing on H. R. 3178. p. 23–5. 67th Congress, 2d Session. February 9, 1922.
8. From article Reform of the Present Calendar, by William F. Rigge. Based on an article in the Stimmen der Zeit, vol. 106, nos. 3 and 4, 1923–24, by J. G. Hagen, of the Vatican Observatory. Popular Astronomy. 32:129–33. March, 1924.
9. From article Reform of the Present Calendar, by H. Jameson, Colombo Observatory, Ceylon. Popular Astronomy. 32:416–17. August, 1924.
10. From article Reform of the Calendar, by H. C. P. Nature. 86:281–2. April 27, 1911.
11. From pamphlet "B" by M. B. Cotsworth, Director, International Fixed Calendar League. p. 1–15. Washington, D.C.
12. From Address by George Eastman, Eastman Kodak Company. Rochester, N.Y., before the United States Chamber of Commerce, October 18, 1927.
13. From article Progress Toward Calendar Simplification, by Isabel Keith Macdermott, Managing Editor, Bulletin of the Pan American Union. Bulletin of the Pan American Union. 62:1234–42. December, 1928.
14. By Dr. C. F. Marvin, Chief of United States Weather Bureau. From pamphlet Do We Need Calendar Reform? by George Eastman. p. 49–52. Rochester, N.Y. 1927?
15. From article by Herbert C. Freeman. Journal of Accountancy. 43:161–70. March, 1927.
16. Minority report by Henry D. Sharpe and Stanley H. Bullard. Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Committee on Calendar Reform. Calendar Reform, p. 18–19. Washington, D. C. 1929.
17. From discussion by Colonel E. Gold, D. S. O., F. R. S., Assistant Director of the Meteorological Office, at a meeting of the Society on February 21, 1923. Royal Meteorological Society. Quarterly Journal. 49:147–8. July, 1923.
18. From discussion by Colonel E. Gold, D. S. O., F. R. S., Assistant Director of the Meteorological Office, at a meeting of the Society on February 21, 1923. Royal Meteorological Society. Quarterly Journal. 49:147–8. July, 1923.
19. From article by A. L. Candy, University of Nebraska. Science. 61:286–7. March 13, 1925.