as was the early nineteenth century, to destruction.
[35] A well-known case is the volume, belonging to the
records of the Master of the Revels, which, if
it is genuine, dates one of Shakespeare's plays:
unfortunately it was for a considerable time out of
official custody, and doubts have been cast on the
authenticity of the most important page.
Now, the rules for safe preservation and custody are simple things,
matters of proved experience, a number of which are set out in a
small book recently published in England, and at more length in the
well-known Continental treatise;[36] and though the standard of
archive-keeping by local authorities is at present very uneven, we may,
for the shortening of this article, dismiss that side of the question
with pious hopes. Assuming, then, that the documents of our own time,
when they come to the state of archives, will be preserved in suitable
places and under proper rules of custody, assuming further that we
are able to drill archivists into leaving their charges as far as
possible in the physical order and state in which they find them (so
as to preserve the old association of document with document), we have
to face as our chief danger a threat not so much to the authenticity
of the record as to its impartiality--the most important of all its
qualities and one which, once damaged, cannot be restored. Interference
with impartiality may occur at two points: in the first place it may
occur, as indeed it has sometimes done in the past, at or near the time
of the document's making; the administrator who makes it may himself
have an eye on posterity. We shall have to recur to this again, but
for the moment let us turn to the second, which is the more serious
because it brings us up against the great modern record problem, bulk:
impartiality may be--rather, is--impugned when we come to the selection
of documents for preservation.
[36] C. Johnson: _The Care of Documents_ (S.P.C.K. Helps
for Students of History); and Muller, Feith, and
Fruin: _Manuel pour le Classement des Archives_.
The obvious remedy for this is not to select--to preserve everything;
but this is in practice an equally obvious impossibility: the instance
already quoted of the accumulation of our war records[37] would no
doubt supply apt illustration, but the custodian of county records is
faced on his small scale with exactly the same difficulty: we are all
confronted, in fact, with this main problem--how are we to reconcile
our desire to preserve in our records certain qualities which have
accompanied in the past an uncontrolled accumulation with the necessity
of our own day for restriction? Up to now, in face of this problem, and
in face of the system of selection, or destruction, which is actually
in use, no one (not even the Royal Commission, which has obviously
devoted much attention to the subject) has really gone further than to
tell the selectors that they must be very careful. But can they? Let
us take a case of public records, an imaginary class of, say, 200,000
pieces to be dealt with in a limited space of time by a limited number
of people who have probably other work waiting to be done: how can
they possibly say (since they have not the time to make a detailed
comparison) that all the information contained in certain documents
which they propose to condemn is to be found elsewhere? Or, taking
another criterion, how can they say that certain documents are going to
be without interest for the future? There are classes of documents in
the Public Record Office now frequently used and highly valued which
little more than fifty years ago might well have been destroyed as
having no interest for any branch of human study then known.
[37] Records so vast that in its last report (1919) the
Royal Commission has found it necessary to alter
its original (1914) recommendations regarding the
provision of new repository accommodation.
At this point the natural thing is to seek the advice of the historian,
who is indeed, being an enthusiast, anxious to give it. Now, the
historian may fairly claim to have done much for records in the past.
He is mainly responsible for the recognition of public records as
things valuable and to be kept carefully for other reasons than that of
mere antiquity; and he has done something in England (one always hopes
that he will do more presently) for local and private collections.
But he cannot predict the needs of future research workers (who may
not be historians at all) any more than he was able to predict in the
time of the old Record Commission the needs of our own day: witness
the indexes, quite useless to an economic historian, of the very
important Chancery Rolls of King John, published about 1830. Even if
we grant that he may make a better guess than other men, we are met by
a still graver objection in the fact that we cannot rule out at least
the possibility (since he is human and an historian) of his having a
predilection for the evidence which will establish a certain view or
emphasise a certain line of inquiry. The use of an historian, or of
any other person who uses records for research purposes, as a selector
seems to me incompatible with the preservation of their characteristic
impartiality: there will be a possibility--and the mere possibility is
enough--of _suppressio veri_, if not of _suggestio falsi_; and what
should have been a record, preserved by circumstances which do not
affect its value as evidence, will become no more than the narrative
or at most the _pièce justificative_ of a specialist; you might as
well allow a botanist to produce a hybrid in order to prove not its
possibility but its existence as a natural form.
But if we cannot use the historian for our purposes we may perhaps call
in the trained archivist. I am afraid that here again we shall find
no help. The archivist may take an interest in any of the subjects
upon which his collections furnish evidence; but such interests have
nothing to do with (indeed they sometimes impede) the duties that are
his of safeguarding, arranging, and making accessible and of basing
himself for all these duties on the internal structure of the classes
of documents in his charge: with the possible exception of the last
there is nothing in these qualifications to make him more fit than the
historian for the work of selection--and destruction.
Is there, then, no possible way--we will not say of dealing with our
present accumulations; they, it may be, on account of their sheer bulk
must be dealt with by such _ad hoc_ methods as the circumstances
admit of; and into those methods it is not our province here to
enter--but merely for our guidance in the future, is there no chance
of reconciling the requirements of ourselves and posterity (so far as
these can be foreseen) with the intrinsic interests of the records
themselves--the external with the internal--or rather perhaps of
finding some method of treatment which will give to our records a
reasonable bulk while preserving their important characteristics, and
at the same time will at least not sacrifice unduly the interests of
the research-worker? Perhaps an indication of such a possibility is
to be found in the words "our present accumulations" which we used
above. How would it be if we set ourselves in the future to prevent
accumulations?
A certain amount of contemporary destruction of the more obviously
ephemeral papers--notes from one department of an office to another
saying, "Passed to you, please," and perhaps documents of a more
advanced type--does, of course, in our own days sometimes take place in
large offices. And there are not wanting indications that a perception
of the need of something more, especially in regard to public offices,
has been growing since the Act of 1877, provided that the Master of
the Rolls might make rules respecting the disposal by destruction or
otherwise of documents which are deposited in or can be removed to the
Public Record Office (note the lack of any distinction between the
two classes) and which are not of sufficient public value to justify
their preservation in the Public Record Office. Such an indication is
seen in the desire expressed by the late Royal Commission on Public
Records[38] for the substitution in Government offices of destruction
and preservation of documents according to well-considered principles
for destruction founded on arbitrary, varying opinions; and for the
relief of the Public Record Office Repository from a cumbersome mass
of useless or unnecessary documents. But no one, so far as I am aware,
has yet summed up and balanced, for the benefit of all records and
record-keepers, whether public or private, the merits and demerits
of the various systems of destruction, either in the light of the
intrinsic character of records themselves or in that of the experience
gained from a study of our ancestors' methods. And the accumulations of
documents, many of which are subsequently judged not to be material,
continue.
[38] First report, p. 41; cp.: second report, p. 71, etc.
Now we may assume, indeed we know, that from the earliest times not
only selections of subjects for representation in permanent records
but also actual destruction of documents has been practised by the
administrators who have left us their collections. Only--and here
is the distinction--since the question of bulk did not trouble them
as it does us, they were able to act solely on the ground that the
record in question was not required for their current administrative
purposes. Note that in this their impartiality was not affected by
the external considerations of either this world or the next, neither
by any interest in the history-writing of the future, nor by the
exigencies of floor-space in the present. Any subsequent destruction,
direct or indirect, by our ancestors was quite a different matter:
such destruction has invariably been the subject ultimately of adverse
criticism, though no doubt the person responsible saw no particular
harm in it. For example, take the case of the burning of the Exchequer
tallies in 1834. The position of contemporaries is probably represented
tolerably by that of Charles Dickens, who criticised the proceeding on
the ground not only that it burned down the Houses of Parliament, but
also that it was a wanton waste of firewood which might have been given
to the poor: yet already we, not a hundred years after, are regretting
it. On the other hand, though historians are in the habit of saying
vaguely that much which was of incalculable value must have been lost,
they refer always to the losses due to various forms of carelessness. I
have never heard anyone venture to criticise the Chancery, for example,
because it did not preserve full copies of non-returnable writs or the
Exchequer because certain draft accounts were destroyed.
What, in fact, are the principal gaps in old records which affect us
moderns? If we take two of the documents which have thrown light on
the personal history of Shakespeare (not a matter of much moment to
his contemporaries) we shall arrive at a clear distinction between
two different kinds of destruction, or shall we say failure to
preserve? On the one hand, we have a document signed by Shakespeare
as a witness: all that mattered to the court here was that certain
evidence had been given by some indifferent person and accepted. Could
we have blamed it if it had failed to preserve this signature which
we find so intriguing, or had allowed it (as was sometimes done) to
be written in by the scribe who took down the deposition? Or if it
had preserved the whole document only in the form of a summary? Most
certainly we could not: how was the court to know that we should be
interested in Shakespeare's life and handwriting? On the other hand,
take the case where Shakespeare himself was party to a fine: had the
court of Common Pleas failed to preserve the "foot" of that fine, which
was a recognised form of evidence of its own transactions, we should
legitimately criticise its carelessness.
It appears, therefore, that the only criticism posterity will be able
to pass on us, if we adhere to the practice of our ancestors, will be
one based on the extent to which we leave record behind us of the work
of the various administrations; and our further queries then resolve
themselves into two:
(1) Can we train our administrator so to keep his records _at the time
they are made_ that they will give a fair picture of the activities of
his office, and this without desiring him to do it for the benefit of
posterity, without making an historian of him?
(2) Can this be done so economically as to get rid of the bulk
difficulty in connection with preservation?
If the answer to each of these questions is "Yes," then our problem is
solved.
It is not, of course, possible to answer them in detail here, because
to do so would involve inserting a detailed scheme for the keeping of
archives in a modern office; it would also involve going into such
highly technical, and in some cases controversial, matters as the
use and abuse of flimsies, the whole position of the typewriter in
record-making (with an excursus on carbons and inks), the comparative
merits of various filing systems, and, as regards this country at
least, liaison between Government departments. But we may perhaps try
in the most general terms to lay down a few first principles and see
how far they indicate the possibility of an answer. We may premise that
while no two accountants differ radically in their methods, the name
of the various filing systems and practices is legion; while we have
had double-entry for three or four hundred years, no one has yet hit on
a system of filing correspondence and the like which commands general
approval; from which we may draw the corollary that almost everywhere
there are large redundancies.
If, then, we are to educate our administrator we should begin
(1) By explaining the trouble that has been caused by accumulations of
records in the past and the impossibility of dealing with them reliably
and satisfactorily in the present. This trouble we require him to
prevent in the future by a system of personal attention and studied
economy. (He would, of course, say at once that this could not be done;
the reply is "Have you tried?")
(2) The next point is concerned also with authenticity, but it is in
every way of primary importance.[39]
[39] How important may be judged from the perusal of
more than one modern volume of more than one great
statesman's "Private Papers"--many of them public
records which have been taken out of custody. Perhaps
the new diplomacy may do something to remedy this evil.
Every office, no matter how small, must have a registry;[40] _i.e._,
must be divided up, _qua_ records, into two branches, administrative
and executive; it must have a small branch which keeps and controls,
distinct from the large which makes and uses, documents. Registry, the
keeper and controller of office papers, is to lay down the way in which
letters are to be written and whether copies are to be made. When they
are made (or received, if they come from without) all office documents
are the property of registry, which is responsible for destruction
or preservation (with, of course, the advantage of advice from the
executive side in a large office) and for safeguarding and methods of
arrangement.
[40] I hope I shall not be accused of ignorance of the fact
that registries do exist in some offices. The point
is, first, that their existence is not universal;
second, that they have not yet been turned towards
those functions which it is here suggested they should
fulfil.
(3) The golden rule for administrators is: in preserving and arranging
documents keep in view a single purpose, that of enabling an ignorant
successor by their means to carry on if you and the whole of your staff
were blotted out. We depend largely on this rule for an answer to the
historian's objection that the administrator if left to himself will
destroy all the valuable things--lose the Shakespeare fine, in fact.
It is not, however, inserted here for that purpose, but because it is
obviously sound.
(4) Apart from this rule the first principle should be economy; and
economy, if registry is not to be overburdened with work, must consist
largely in rules carefully thought out concerning not the documents
which are to be destroyed, but the documents which are never to be
made: for example, probably at least 50 per cent. of the copies of
out-letters which are preserved in a big office record nothing more
than despatch, which could be done in two words or less in a general
register.
(5) The ideal subject index, it has been said, would have only one
entry and any quantity of cross-references; similarly there is an ideal
of a single master series in records: being an ideal, neither of these
things is realisable, but it is possible to get near to them. For
example, registry can and should have a record of its own, a single
general register, and a properly made entry in this would be amply
sufficient record of many transactions which are at present dignified
with a _dossier_.
(6) In this connection we may refer to the necessity for the
intelligent use of mechanical devices: many duplicates and unnecessary
documents are habitually kept owing to a failure to appreciate the
merits as distinguishing features of a red pencil and a blue, the
opposition of left to right, the possibilities of the first and the
second column, not to mention the third, fourth, and fifth....
(7) Registry should have a clear conception of the nature of
records--that there are only three kinds: In-letters, out-letters,
and memoranda (including accounts). A realisation of this and of the
way in which records work into each other means economy in internal
arrangement, and in the case of Government offices might, if liaison
were close and a single system of record-keeping in general use, make
new economies possible as between departments.
(8) So far we have been considering the possibilities of an economy
which consists in not making documents; but we have, of course, to
consider also actual destruction, of which there are three kinds: (_a_)
First, there is what we may call _posthumous destruction_, the kind
which is now most in vogue, and which we want to stop altogether: that
is the destruction which deals with an accumulation formed perhaps
years before--destruction for its own sake, because of over-great
bulk. Then (_b_) there is _immediate destruction_, which gives effect
to the judgment passed at the earliest possible moment on a document:
you wait only until a letter (let us say perhaps a letter making an
appointment) is acknowledged, and then, since its actual terms concern
only the person addressed, and for your office's purposes you have
sufficient evidence in your registry, you destroy. (_c_) Finally, there
is _deferred destruction_, the kind which comes into operation where
a document, already condemned, so far as concerns the purposes of the
office, is temporarily preserved for some purely external reason;
for example, in connection with the provisions of the Statute of
Limitations.
(9) A primary rule of destruction is that no letter-in, copy of
letter-out, or draft of office memoranda shall be kept which does
not mean a stage in advance for the office's business. But it is
particularly necessary that this destruction should take place at the
earliest possible moment, while the business is fresh in the minds of
those concerned; because there are documents which, though they have no
direct result themselves, yet by that very fact mark an advance in the
policy (let us say) of a department, and delay in the consideration of
these might conceivably be dangerous.
(10) For the purposes of _deferred destruction_ some system of
automatic working will be necessary; for instance, if large masses of
papers, valueless otherwise to the office, have to be kept, say, for
six years for legal reasons, there should be a regular system by which
every day the register of six years back should be examined and the
papers there marked (let us say) D.D., for deferred destruction, should
be at once drawn, disposed of, and marked off. It is possible that some
system might be introduced to cover doubtful cases, which could be
given a short lease of life--some statutory number of months, pending
a decision by circumstances upon their value. This would be a good
safeguard against careless destruction, though that should never occur.
(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.