632 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Our Holiday System 



Is it not time that some effort should be made to reform our system of 

 hoUdays ? The observance of bank hoUdays, and of Christmas, Easter, and 

 summer holidays, for the whole public on the same dates really causes an 

 immense amount of trouble, expense, and dissatisfaction, for the obvious 

 reason that all the people are compelled to pour away out of the cities to 

 seaside and other resorts almost at the same time, thus overcrowding the 

 hotels, boarding-houses, and lodging-houses, besides flooding the railways, 

 tramways, and roads. One result is that keepers of hotels and lodging- 

 houses are able to raise their prices owing to the competition and that every- 

 one is made uncomfortable, while at the same time most important affairs 

 are apt to be paralysed for days and weeks. Would it not be much better 

 to make some effort towards persuading the people to take their holidays, 

 not on fixed dates for all, but whenever they can conveniently be spared ? 

 Of course this is already done to a certain extent, but not to the extent 

 which one could wish. Last year the railways were offering inducements 

 for travel in June and July instead of August, and we may hope that this 

 effort will be continued. 



The real reason for the simultaneous crush is that the schools give their 

 holidays all at the same time. Could not this possibly be avoided ? Surely 

 some schools might have their holidays in June, others in July, and others 

 in August, and parents could send their children to those schools which have 

 their holidays at times which suit them. The division of terms at the 

 Universities might also be revised. It is essential to our C 3 population 

 that it should obtain as much fresh air as possible; why, then, is so much 

 holiday-time given at Christmas and Easter ? Would it not be better to 

 concentrate most of our holidays in the summer months, especially June, 

 July, and August ? In Sweden, for instance, nearly the whole of this quarter 

 is devoted to the health-giving open-air holiday existence, and the people 

 work all the harder for it during the less agreeable months. The bank- 

 holiday system is especially bad — not because holidays are given, but because 

 they are given on the same dates. Surely it would be possible to rule that 

 every person must have so many holidays during the year without specifying 

 that the whole nation shall take them simultaneously. This would be a 

 gieat rehef to the railways, the hotels, and to lodging-houses at the seaside, 

 and, most of all, to the nation at large. Prices for lodgings would fall ; the 

 seaside hotels would be occupied all through the summer ; and people would 

 be able to enjoy the country-side without being always surrounded by crowds 

 eating buns and chocolates and making the pecuhar kinds of noises which 

 they call singing. 



Dikinz Drops iz Eitshiz (B. R.) 



Last July we ventured to write in support of the criticism which the 

 Poet Laureate had published against a school of " fonertishns," who, he 

 thought, made out spoken English to be even more slipshod than it really is. 

 This school is, however, really engaged not so much on phonetics as in 

 instructing foreign learners of our language — such as, let us say, German 

 commercial travellers — how to speak English without a trace of a foreign 

 accent ; and they achieve this result by using the phonetic notation of the 

 International Phonetic Association. Since then we have received Charles 

 Dickens's story. Our Mutual Friend, transcribed into the same script by 

 Mr. C. M. Rice, M.A., A.R.C.M. (W. Heffer & Sons, Cambridge, 1920). Mr. 

 Rice is to be highly commended for what must have been a very serious 

 labour, and the book will be of interest not only to foreigners but to the 

 many Britons who would like to see how the " fonertishns " are pleased to 

 think we are in the habit of speaking. The book is a curiosity, and deserves 



