692 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 853 



table of fixed dates. It combines all the best 

 points of the proposals that have been pub- 

 lished in these columns, and avoids their bad 

 points. 



The plan for its adoption has all the sim- 

 plicity that usually accompanies really good 

 things and is as follows: 



In the year 1911, the days of the week in the 

 months of September, October, November 

 and December coincide with the arrangement 

 in the proposed calendar. If, any time dur- 

 ing the year 1911, the governments of the 

 various nations will decide to declare the 

 thirty-first of December of that year, and of 

 all future years, a non-week-day, one half of 

 the problem will have been solved. If they 

 will then declare that during the year 1912, 

 and all future years, the number of days in 

 the five months February, March, April, May 

 and August shall be changed in accordance 

 with the accompanying table, the entire prob- 

 lem will have been solved. 



As this is a perfectly simple, practical and 

 conservative plan for overcoming difficulties 

 that every one is obliged to contend with every 

 day of his life, steps should be taken by those 

 in a position to do so, to have the president 

 authorized to appoint a commission to investi- 

 gate the matter thoroughly, with authority to 

 confer with the similar commissions to be ap- 

 pointed by other governments and by the 

 Vatican, to the end that some such scheme 

 shall be adopted. 



The conditions necessary for the adoption 

 of this scheme as outlined above will recur in 



INVAEIABLE TABLE OF DATES 



For the Quarters 



Sunday 



Monday 



Tuesday.... 

 Wednesday 

 Thursday... 

 Friday.."... 

 Saturday... 

 Non-week day' 



January 

 April 

 July 



October 



22 29 

 23;30 

 24131 

 25!... 

 26 ... 

 27... 

 28... 



February 



May 



August 



November 



1017 

 1118 



March 



June 

 September 

 December 



1917, and as it is hardly likely that any 

 scheme can be agreed upon by December, 

 1911, we may look to that year to free us from 

 the inconveniences under which we have 

 suffered so long. 



John M. Clifford, Jr. 

 Beaddock, Pa. 



QUOTATIONS 



' Only in December of ordinary years and also 

 in June of leap years. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF UNIVERSITIES 



Americans interested in the questions of 

 university government will find much that is 

 interesting and pertinent to our own situation 

 in the admirable article on " Modern Univer- 

 sities and their Government " which is the 

 leading feature of the London Times's educa- 

 tional supplement for April 4. We are very 

 much in the habit of thinking of our universi- 

 ties, with ultimate power over the institution 

 resting in the lay boards of trustees, as being 

 in this respect quite unlike any other educa- 

 tional institutions of similar importance; and 

 this is natural enough, since the half-dozen 

 new universities that have been established in 

 the chief provincial cities of England, and 

 which are probably their only important an- 

 alogues, are of such recent origin as to be 

 seldom prominently in our thoughts in this 

 connection. It is the government of these 

 new universities, and especially the methods 

 and the spirit of their procedure in the ap- 

 pointment of professors, that constitute the 

 subject of the Times article; a subject justi- 

 fying the extreme seriousness with which it is 

 discussed because the universities in question 

 are expanding with such rapidity that they 

 " have to a large extent the future of English 

 learning in their hands." 



Both the resemblances and the differences 

 that suggest themselves, as between the Amer- 

 ican and the English experience, are of de- 

 cided interest. Into the details of the English 

 organization we shall not attempt to enter; 

 suffice it to say that the active governing 

 authority of the university, corresponding to 

 our board of trustees, is what is known as the 

 council; and while this council is not nomi- 

 nally self-electing or self-renewing, in practise 

 it is so. Perhaps the most interesting state- 



