The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1912-10-03
Everything Would Be Re-
duced to a Fixed
Standard.

IMMINENT Germans are deep in
ID plans to systematic, schema
IL tie and normalize the world,
says Herbert Bateman in an
article in the Los Angeles Times. They
are annoyed at human inequalities
and asperities and want things all
made equal, simple and smooth
The leader of the movement is Pro-
lessor Wilhelm OSWALD, the Nobel
prize winner Of 1909. After him come
Professor Schneider of Berlin, DR..
Klaus Wagner, the traveller Hesse-
Wartegg and several others.
They have plans for publishing books
in standard sizes, compelling Easter
to fall always on the same day of the
same month, reforming the calendar,
revolutionizing chronology and turning
arithmetic inside out. The scientific
world backs their efforts. for in ca
pacity for planning Germany beats all
humanity hollow.
The monumental irregularities OF
chronology annoy the scientists most
The day as at present divided up Is,
they say, monstrosity. 1t has no
right to be cut into twenty-four hours
when longer spaces of time are count
ed by centuries and millenniums. The
day of the reformed future will have
hundred hours, each divided into a
hundred minutes and each minute into
q hundred seconds.
The exigencies of life have already
introduced in practice this system of
chronology; it remains only to recog-
n1ze the fact. We do not count time
by hours, but by quarter hours, Of
which there are nearly hundred in
the day. When man wants to state
time roughly he states it by the quar-
ter; appointments are made by the
quarter, and for practical purposes fif-
teen minutes is the real time. Less
than fifteen minutes does not much
count, while half an hour is too long
a unit The new hours, being a hum
dredth part of the day, will each con-
tain fourteen and two-fifth minutes
which is practically a quarter Of an
hour. Instead Of saying "a quarter to
l." people will say simply Eat 49,"
Practical Obstacles Small.
Professor Wagner says people will
get used to that in a few days. The
practical obstacles are small Every
new clock will have a dial divided
into 100 parts. The hour hand will 20
around the new clock only once a day.
Old clocks can be easily adapted. They
will need new dials, with double rows
of figures from I to 50 and from so to
100. and the hour hand will complete
ats circuit twice a day. For the hours
the mechanism will therefore need no
change The minute problem will
have to be met in the old clocks by
letting the minute hand go four times
around the clock for each hour.
Weeks that refuse to fit into the
year and meaningless irregular months
must also he radically reconstructed.
The week must first be taken in hand.
The French revolutions attempt to
lengthen it to ten days failed. Ten
DAYS was too long, and the present
week is too long. The week of the
future will have six days. It will be-
gin on Monday, drop Saturday alto
gether and end with Sunday. There
Will be sixty Sundays in the year.
The month, the German scientists
agree, must contain six weeks-that is.
thirty-six days-and there will be ten
months in the year. In that case any
date of the month will always fall on
the same week day. This will save
tremendous trouble.
Only $50 Days.
This arrangement provides for only
800 days. The remaining five will not
count as days of the month or as DAYS
of the week. That would upset the
symmetrical months and weeks. The
odd five will be sandwiched in wher-
ever convenient and used for holidays.
such as Christmas. Easter and the ma
x1onal holidays of the different coun-
tries Leap year would not spoil the
harmony, because leap year day would
not be the goth of February, but a
dateless, intercalated day.
With such a division of time the
year would not any longer fall into
quarters. Things that are now done
quarterly would be done every two
months-that is, every seventy-two
days. Quarterly reports. quarterly
meetings, and so on, would all be reg
ulated on the two month basis. This
would be an advantage in itself once
people got used to it.
Professor Wagner. backed by all
the systematizers, holds that the day
should be forced to begin at a natural
hour. In ancient times the day some
times began in the morning. and some
times in the evening. To begin the
day at midnight was a contrivance of
Roman iuristS who 1,on+oa In .1,w.,a