criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take
the form of "immaterial" goods. Such immaterial evidences of past
leisure are quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and
a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not conduce
directly to the furtherance of human life. So, for instance, in
our time there is the knowledge of the dead languages and the
occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of
the various forms of domestic music and other household art; of
the latest properties of dress, furniture, and equipage; of
games, sports, and fancy-bred animals, such as dogs and
race-horses. In all these branches of knowledge the initial
motive from which their acquisition proceeded at the outset, and
through which they first came into vogue, may have been something
quite different from the wish to show that one's time had not
been spent in industrial employment; but unless these
accomplishments had approved themselves as serviceable evidence
of an unproductive expenditure of time, they would not have
survived and held their place as conventional accomplishments of
the leisure class.

These accomplishments may, in some sense, be classed as branches
of learning. Beside and beyond these there is a further range of
social facts which shade off from the region of learning into
that of physical habit and dexterity. Such are what is known as
manners and breeding, polite usage, decorum, and formal and
ceremonial observances generally. This class of facts are even
more immediately and obtrusively presented to the observation,
and they therefore more widely and more imperatively insisted on
as required evidences of a reputable degree of leisure. It is
worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial