onishing examples of contemporary painters. (We are not anticipating any
inquiries for contemporary sculpture). A minimum of ten minutes is allowed
for this room. When your turn arrives you mount to the first floor, which
you find divided into two parts. In each of these a cinematograph is
installed, one "featuring" prominent artists in the standard dramas of the
particular country--works like _Le Cid_, _Macbeth_, _Faust_, or _Peer
Gynt_; while the other runs through the more discussed scenes of any
current entertainment which conceivably one "ought to see."

The first of these programmes is designed primarily for foreigners, and is
meant to save them the fatigue of a visit to national or subsidised
theatres, where these exist. The second is intended to meet the
requirements of natives. Each bill will last an hour, and, though clients
are entitled to see both performances, full-time attendance at either
carries with it the right to proceed to the next floor. Here again are two
more rooms. In the first of these a gramophone renders in turn the leading
vocalists and instrumentalists (serious) of the country. (Say
half-an-hour.) So far you will have been put to a minimum expenditure of
one hour and forty minutes, and, as only five minutes is allowed for the
last room, the time total cannot be considered excessive.

In this last room is nothing but a row of desks. You wait your turn before
one of these; then you hand in your name and receive a pass. On this is
printed a certificate that you, the above-mentioned, are acquainted with
the masterpieces tabulated overleaf. Thus in less than two hours (inclusive
of possible delay in the waiting-room) you are free to spend your holiday
exactly as you choose. It is hoped that in time these certificates may come
to be accepted as carrying complete immunity, for at least a month, from
every form of intellectual treat.

Hewetson wanted the certificates to be issued in the waiting-room. He said
it would save time. But I decided that, if the prestige of the institutions
and their certificates is to be kept up, unscrupulous people must have no
chance of obtaining a pass and slipping away without going up-stairs.
Indeed, I am adding an elaborate system of checks, by which it will become
impossible to reach the Discharge Bureau without spending the requisite
time in each room. The first room is the danger. In the crush people might
escape to the cinemas before their ten minutes is up. My i