RECKONING FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 55 
seems equally appropriate for a general change and the complete unification of time- 
reckoning. Every auxiliary circumstance points to the possibility of that result being 
attained. The proceedings of the Washington Conference have given the movement an 
immense impulse. Its members have authoritatively recognized the principles on which 
the new notation may be established. So unimpeachable and simple are these principles 
as to be within the grasp of the most limited comprehension. In their application we 
may have to contend against the prejudices engendered by habit and custom, but the 
principles of reckoning time adopted by the Conference are based on truth and they com- 
mend themselves to every one of intelligence, as the proper means to meet the admitted 
emergency. The unanimity with which the Standard Hour system was brought into 
common use in North America is an evidence that the age is sufficiently intelligent to 
adopt a reform when its advantages are understood. It will doubtless require the lapse 
of some years to win over those who feel it to be a bounden duty to cling to old institu- 
tions and existing customs. Gradually, however, the minds of the great mass of men 
will become familiarized with the new ideas and in the end the new system of notation 
cannot fail to prevail. The main obstacles to be overcome are the restraints which tradi- 
tion imposes and the usages which our ancestors have transmitted to us. But prejudices 
of this character can be gradually and certainly surmounted, if the true principles of time- 
reckoning be taught in schools and colleges. In a few years the youth of to-day will 
be moving actors in life, to influence public opinion and so effect an easy escape from the 
thraldom of custom. We have therefore good grounds for the belief that, by the dawn of 
the coming century, the civilized nations may enjoy a system of notation limited to no 
locality ; when the record of the events of history will be unmarked by doubt; when 
ambiguity in hours and dates will be at an end; when every division of time will be 
concurrent in all longitudes. 
These expectations realized, the Washington Conference will have rendered a great 
service to mankind. Ifthe reforms of B. C. 46 and A. D. 1582 owed their origin to the do- 
minant necessity of removing confusion in connection with the notations which existed 
in the then conditions of the human race, in no less degree is a another reform demanded 
by the new conditions which are presented in this age. The needed change could not be 
effected at a more suitable period than at the beginning of the new century, but whether 
then consummated or at some other date, full provision is made for it in the conclusions 
and recommendations of the Washington Conference, which in all probability will be 
held by future generations to mark an epoch in the annals of the world not less impor- 
tant than those of the reforms of Julius Cæsar and Pope Gregory XIII. 
