November 25, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



757 



By the will of Professor A. Marshall Elliott, 

 the Johns Hopkins University receives his 

 library, and the sum of $2,000 for the es- 

 tablishment of a scholarship for graduate stu- 

 dents in the department of Romance lan- 

 guages. 



The twenty-fourth annual convention of 

 the Association of Colleges and Preparatory 

 Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, 

 will be held at Lehigh University on Novem- 

 ber 26 and 27. The three sessions of the con- 

 vention will be devoted to the discussion of 

 mathematics, science and English respec- 

 tively. President Drinker, of Lehigh, will 

 give the address of welcome. The address of 

 Dr. J. M. Greene, of the New Jersey State 

 Normal School, president of the association, 

 will be on " Educational Economics." 



We learn from Nature that the Duke of 

 Connaught on November 5 laid the founda- 

 tion-stone of the new university hall of the 

 Cape University. The council of the univer- 

 sity presented an address, in which the hope 

 was expressed that the union now accom- 

 plished in South Africa would lead to the eon- 

 version of the present Cape University into a 

 teaching university for the whole of South 

 Africa, by incorporating existing institutions 

 of higher education as constituent colleges, 

 and by creating chairs for those subjects for 

 which no single college could provide. In re- 

 plying, the Duke of Connaught said he trusted 

 that the funds necessary to convert the Cape 

 University into a great teaching university 

 would be forthcoming. At a university 

 luncheon, held on the same day, Mr. Malan, 

 minister of education, announced that Mr. 

 Otto Beit had agreed to divert the sum of 

 £200,000, bequeathed by the late Mr. Alfred 

 Beit for the foundation of a university at 

 Johannesburg, to the creation of a great teach- 

 ing university at Groote Schuur, the estate of 

 the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes outside Cape Town. 

 It was also announced that Sir Julius Wern- 

 her has promised to make up the amount to a 

 total of £500,000. 



At the University of Virginia the following 

 promotions have been made : J. L. Newcomb 

 to be professor of engineering, Edgar Graham 



to be adjunct professor of chemistry; David 

 Vance Guthrie to be adjunct professor of 

 physics. "W. S. Rodman, of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology, has been appointed 

 adjunct professor of electrical engineering. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



\/ THE REFORM OF THE CALENDAR 



To THE Editor of Science : The several sug- 

 gestions for the simplification of the current 

 calendar made in your columns by Reining- 

 haus (July 29), Slocum, embracing those of 

 Cotsworth (September 2), Patterson (October 

 14) and Dabney (October 21) awaken the hope 

 that a calendar can be contrived which will be 

 much superior to the present one and which at 

 the same time will not encounter so much 

 prejudice and human inertia as to be fatal to 

 its adoption at an early date. It is, however, 

 of the first importance that the new calendar 

 be so well matured before its adoption is seri- 

 ously urged that it will not itself need to be 

 laid aside for something better by the time it 

 has fairly come into use. To this end sugges- 

 tions from various points of view followed by 

 a period of deliberate study and tentative 

 combination may well be regarded as indis- 

 pensable to the best ultimate results. As a 

 possible contribution to this preliminary work, 

 I venture to suggest a calendar that embodies 

 many of the excellent suggestions already 

 made, but instead of introducing a 13th 

 month, makes use of only 12 months of 4 

 weeks (28 days) each, bunching these into 

 four groups and placing the remaining four 

 weeks between these groups so as to set out the 

 four seasonal quarters of the year distinctly. 

 The purpose is to facilitate the use of the 

 quarters of the year as convenient time divi- 

 sions of an order intermediate between the 

 month and the year. The quarters of the year 

 already have a large place in the accountings 

 of the industrial and financial world and are 

 likely to grow into very important time divi- 

 sions. 



The integers of the proposed scheme are 

 these : 



(o) Quarters: Corresponding measurably to 

 the four seasons. 



