OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 475 



places, moreover, where two or more standards are used, the local time 

 enters to increase the confusion. Remedies for this state of things 

 have been studied by able scientific men, discussed at length by learned 

 societies, and developed practically by railroad managers. All purely 

 ideal solutions have had to give way to those considerations which affect 

 the convenience of the public. For example, an early suggestion was 

 for the railroads to use one universal standard, while each community 

 should use its own local time. But such a scheme is visionary, since 

 neither the railroads nor the people would put it into practice. Ac- 

 cording to the plan which the railroads have recently adopted, the min- 

 ute-hands of watches all over the country are to be in coincidence, but 

 the hours are nowhere to depart far from local time ; and thus the 

 troublesome necessity of allowing for a difference of an odd number of 

 minutes is avoided. Again, tiie boundaries between sections using 

 successive hours are to be fixed with due regard to economic consid- 

 erations. 



Those American communities which have heretofore had their own 

 local times must now consider whether to retain them, or submit to the 

 temporary inconvenience of adopting the new standard, which is to 

 come into use by the railroads. The recurring seasons of the year and 

 the gradually altering conditions of a city often call for altering the 

 time set to start a train, begin work, or open a public entertainment. 

 Some inconvenience immediately results, but it is quickly compensated. 

 If the standard of time be changed, many appointments will remain the 

 same by the clock, with positive improvement in some cases, while 

 others will be soon shifted according to convenience. Men will not 

 continue long to do things too late or too early in the day just because 

 the standard has been altered. Suppose, for example, that the clocks 

 of a city are put back a quarter of an hour. If the time set for open- 

 ing a school or factory had heretofore been thought rather early in the 

 day, the change would be beneficial. If, on the other hand, the hour 

 for opening had been thought rather late, the selection of a half- 

 hour earlier by the clock would effect the same improvement. In a few 

 weeks after the introduction of the new standard, people will be amazed 

 to see how little is the difference it has made in matters about which 

 anxiety is now expressed. 



The introduction of uniform time will be no new experiment. In 

 the year 1848, I^^ngland, Scotland, and Wales adopted Greenwich 

 time as a standard for the railways, the change for the western part of 

 Scotland exceeding twenty minutes. This railway standard is now 

 used for all ordinary purposes throughout the island. The evils which 



