586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



almost ideal, and agrees, in its main features, with the proposals that 

 have been made by various scientists in Europe for several years past, 

 commencing perhaps with M. Flammarion and referred to later as the 

 " Grosclaude Project," with headquarters at Geneva. It seems to have 

 been considered favorably also by some of the Esperanto congresses. 



Such simple schemes embody the only logical method of handling 

 the subject, as the primal conditions of any calendar reform that we 

 may hope to succeed in adopting throughout the civilized world are, 

 first, simplicity, and, second, the least possible change from our present 

 system. It probably will be generally conceded that if we make a change 

 we had better retain the present division of the year into four seasons, 

 into twelve months, and into weeks of seven days each. Of these the 

 natural and unalterable units are the year and day. The difficulty 

 throughout the ages has been to make one of these commensurate with 

 the other when nature has kindly made their ratio about 365.2422. 



After completing these four seasons, by whichever of the exact 

 arrangement of months that may be considered best, wq have, in any of 

 the cases, 364 days. The remaining non-week day in common years 

 simply fills a little gap and may be called by any appropriate name. It 

 doubtless should be a holiday, but preferably belonging to the old year. 

 In leap year the extra day should be put in the middle of the year, thus 

 making each half-year alike, it being considered the final day of the 

 first half and being a holiday. It perhaps might be called " leap day " 

 or, preferably, something more euphonious. 



A primal advantage of this general scheme is that the beginning of 

 each year and any certain day of any year, counting numerically from 

 the beginning, always happens the same day of the week and, further- 

 more, that each season always begins and ends with the same day of 

 the week, because the 91 days are divisible by 7. 



In any of these good schemes, where we keep years almost the same 

 length, varying by only one day in leap year, we meet with the academic 

 objection that the weeks do not run forever in an unbroken line of seven 

 days each. This, of course, would make no trouble in social or commer- 

 cial life, but it might be contrary to the religious scruples of some 

 people as occasionally giving them an 8-day interval between two sab- 

 baths, instead of always seven days. This could be gotten over, how- 

 ever, if necessary, by calling the additional day a sabbath and thus 

 having two together once a year, and in leap year twice a year. A 

 better plan would perhaps be to let the extra day of the year be Christ- 

 mas, thus allowing only the holiest of all days to crowd certain two 

 sabbaths a little apart. To those people who believe in the great im- 

 portance of an exact sequence of 7-day weeks, which they suppose to 

 have been maintained since the christian era, and which must always 

 be maintained, it may be suggested that if they ever are traveling 



