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| Shared Idea |
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| Consider the Calendar
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| When searching on family heritage with Columbia University, we discovered Consider the Calendar. It was written by Bhola D. Panth and was published in 1944 by Teachers College at Columbia University. I remember Uncle Bhola from my childhood. He was my grandfather's brother-in-law, having married Aunt Nadya in 1945. His acknowledgements in the start of the book includes "To a number of my friends I am deeply grateful--particularly to Miss Nadya Ornstein for assistance in the reorganization and rewriting of the final draft..."
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| While at times a bit dry, I read the entire book. After going through a historic perspective, he statistically noted problems with the current calendar, repeatedly pointing how the days of the week of special events kept changing. While reading, I started picturing having 13 months of 28 days with one or two additional days each year, not being week days. This would give a consistency of having the same date on the same weekday each year. On page 88 in chapter 4, this same concept was explained.
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| It was introduced by Auguste Comte in 1849. This solution was later explained in 1896 in his autobiographical text, The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. Clearly, my solution to the problem was neither new nor innovative.
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| This issue is clarified on page 104, when Bhola Panth states: "On the credit side, the Thirteen-Month Calendar is simplicity at its best and hence easily calculable. Any person capable of reading and writing can easily construct it without any outside aid. The month is unchanging and contains a whole number of weeks with identical dates and days; thus it constitutes an ideal standard. This intrinsic merit would prove of utmost utility were the month rather than the quarter and half-year taken as the base unit for commercial and statistical purposes. It terminates the inconvenience of split weeks in social and industrial life. Finally, because the month is an exact multiple of the week and the year an exact multiple of both the month and the week, its usefulness as a standard is definitely enhanced. The dates and days of anniversaries, once standardized, would always be identical."
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| Earlier, he had noted that "[m]any industries desired time standardization to eliminate wasteful recording and cumbersome calculations caused by the Gregorian Calendar..." In 1922, George Eastman of Kodak fame patronized an effort by Moses B. Cotsworth to adapt the International Fixed Calendar League. The Cotsworth Calendar had been proposed in 1895. The month Sol would be inserted between June and July. The Year Day would have no weekday name and would be inserted after the last day of the thirteenth month. Every fourth year, the Leap Day would similarly be inserted between the last day of June and the first day of the new month, Sol.
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| Panth also presented the World Calendar. It retained having twelve months, where "the fundamental unit of the World Calendar is the quarter. The quarter consists of 91 days (13 weeks) and is divided into three months--the first month of 31 days, the second and third months of 30 days each." After World War I, the League of Nations created the Special Committee of Enquiry into the Reform of the Calendar in 1926. "The Committee stated that...the 13-month system would appear to be desirable if the month, rather than the quarter, were to be taken as a unit of computation. On the other hand, the 12-month equal-quarter plan was obviously preferable if the quarter, rather than the month, were to be used."
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| With the coming of World War II, this calendar effort seems to have passed. In his conclusion, Panth states: "In a fundamental democracy no dictatorial changes are required or desired. A change necessarily comes when the people are convinced of its desirability." This note is central in considering the calendar. It similarly is totally appropriate when considering the present administrative actions.
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| [Note: In my picture in the website entry of Saving Lady Noan, I am holding Consider the Calendar.]
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