118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
Mr. W. J. Loudon, B.A., read a paper on “The Decimal 
System applied to Time,” of which the following is an 
abstract : 
The system of Time which I propose is the following: The 
ordinary day of twenty-four hours would be divided into ten periods 
called, if necessary, hours ; each hour in the new system thus corres- 
ponding to two hours and twenty-four minutes of ordinary time. 
This new hour would be divided into one hundred divisions (which 
we may term minutes) : each of the latter minutes being equivalent, 
therefore, to 1-44 minutes of present time, and being a sufficiently 
good working unit. For small measurements, this minute could be 
subdivided into one hundred seconds, each of the new seconds cor- 
responding to °864 of the old. 
The advantages which I claim for the adoption of such a system 
are :— 
1. All advantages arising from the use of a system based on our 
natural scale of ten. Instead of using separate symbols to denote 
hours, minutes, seconds, time would be denoted by a number and a 
decimal : thus, instead of saying and writing 2 hrs., 25 min., 30 
sec., we would simply say and write 1°45. The labour saved in 
addition, subtraction, etc., would be incalculable. As a correspond- 
ing example of labour saved, I need only refer to the English system 
of pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, when contrasted with our 
decimal system of dollars and cents. 
2. The abolition of the a.m. and p.m. nuisance. This has, of 
course, been overcome by the twenty-four hour scheme, but the latter 
is too unwieldy ever to come into common use. 
3. The change in units, the hour becoming longer and the minute 
longer, than the present hour and minute. 
4. The fact that the numbers on the face of the clock indicate the 
time at once. The greatest objection to our present system (if we 
omit the a.m. and p.m. distinction) is, that the time at any instant 
cannot be inferred by any simple process of the mind from the dial 
of the clock ; when the minute hand is at one, we say it is five 
minutes past ; when the minute hand is at eight, we say it is twenty 
minutes to ; when at eleven it is five minutes to, and so on. If we 
analyze the reasons for which children find so much difficulty in 
learning to tell time, we shall find the cause of all their trouble in 
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