(11) Finally, lest this compromise should let in abuses, there must be a short time of probation for documents fixed, perhaps not more than a year; and, as soon as any document has passed through that, it should automatically go to the record class, where no further destruction is permitted; it would probably in practice be subjected to a final scrutiny a few days before it reached this happy state. As many such documents might still be needed for reference, they would possibly remain with those still on probation or go only to some intermediate muniment-room, not to the final record repository, but they would be records, full-fledged.
The above suggestions are offered only as suggestions, susceptible of much revision and needing much more expansion. The only claim made for them is that they do face the real difficulty of the record situation, and do sketch lines along which the reasonable requirements of the historian, or any other worker who may be destined in the future to pursue strange learning along unthought-of paths, are adequately met; the question of bulk is met, and the present system of dealing in a hopeless kind of way with accumulations already formed and hardened is got rid of; and violence is not done to the structure of the records themselves.
Criticism of the proposed system will probably be divided between statements that it does too much and that it does too little. We may reply that there is no inherent impossibility in the via media, that all alternative systems are destructive of the most essential qualities of records, and that ours is, therefore, at least worth a trial.
Attempts are from time to time made in most large offices to secure the keeping of documents in a manner convenient to those who use them for official purposes. But why not something longer sighted, a little care for the records themselves? Why not a Manual of Record Making and Keeping for Clerks in Government and other Offices?
ON INTERPRETATION IN MUSIC
By SIR GEORGE HENSCHEL, Mus.Doc.
THE question of interpretation, especially in the field of music, and more particularly as regards song, has been prominent of late. Lectures on interpretation, books on the subject have been announced in the papers under more or less attractive titles, but I fear I have never read the latter, nor gone to any of the former. Indeed I confess that throughout my life I have given little, if any, thought to interpretation: a fact not easily accounted for, unless it be that when I was young, people must have been more unsophisticated. Interpretation in music was a thing rarely spoken of. If, for instance, there was a Beethoven symphony on the programme of a concert, people went because they wanted to hear the symphony, not how a conductor interpreted it. It evidently sufficed these good people to have confidence in the musicianship and skill of the members of an orchestra and in the loyalty of their conductor as regards carrying out the composer's wishes as to tempo and expression, confidence altogether in the efficiency of any artist ready to brave the test of publicity. Moreover, conductors were then stationary; the fashion of prima-donna conductors, travelling from one place to another, each trying to outdo his rival in so-called originality, had not come into being, and there was little opportunity for a comparison.
Of course, I had read or heard of points in law being capable of different interpretation by different lawyers, also was aware of the fact that interpreters are persons who, being masters of several languages, act between two people ignorant of each other's tongue, or whose office it is to translate orally in their presence the words of parties speaking different languages, but I never connected the term with music, which, I thought, being a language spoken and understood all the world over, did not require the services of an interpreter. This, of course, was a very youthful notion. But even in later years the question did not interest me very much, and it was not until three or four years ago the editor of an American musical magazine asked me to write for his paper an article which he wished to be entitled "Some Elementary Truths on Song-Interpretation" that the matter attracted my serious attention. I remember answering the gentleman: "My dear sir,—Since we are still waiting for a satisfactory answer to the ancient question 'What is truth?' I must confess myself utterly incompetent to gratify your flattering desire; indeed, without immodesty, I hope, should be reluctant to accept any mortal's opinion regarding a question of art as truth." Somehow or other, however, the thing got hold of me and I began to be curious to see what could be said, or at any rate what I might be able to say on the subject. So, first of all, I consulted the Oxford Dictionary to see whether among the various definitions of the word "Interpretation," which that wonderfully complete book was sure to offer, there might not be one applicable to music, or altogether to art. And there I found that "To interpret" may mean: