foundly shaped the habit of mind and
the point of view of the race in the past, is a sufficient basis for an
aesthetically legitimate dominance of such a scheme of life in very much
of what concerns matters of taste in the present. For the purpose in
hand, canons of taste are race habits, acquired through a more or less
protracted habituation to the approval or disapproval of the kind
of things upon which a favorable or unfavorable judgment of taste is
passed. Other things being equal, the longer and more unbroken the
habituation, the more legitimate is the canon of taste in question. All
this seems to be even truer of judgments regarding worth or honor than
of judgments of taste generally.

But whatever may be the aesthetic legitimacy of the derogatory judgment
passed on the newer learning by the spokesmen of the humanities, and
however substantial may be the merits of the contention that the
classic lore is worthier and results in a more truly human culture and
character, it does not concern the question in hand. The question in
hand is as to how far these branches of learning, and the point of
view for which they stand in the educational system, help or hinder an
efficient collective life under modern industrial circumstances--how
far they further a more facile adaptation to the economic situation
of today. The question is an economic, not an aesthetic one; and
the leisure-class standards of learning which find expression in the
deprecatory attitude of the higher schools towards matter-of-fact
knowledge are, for the present purpose, to be valued from this point of
view only. For this purpose the use of such epithets as "noble", "base",
"higher", "lower", etc., is significant only as showing the animus
and the point of view of the disputants; whether they contend for the
worthiness of the new or of the old. All these epithets are honorific or
humilific terms; that is to say, they are terms of invidious comparison,
which in the last analysis fall under the category of the reputable or
the disreputable; that is, they belong within the range of ideas that
characterizes the scheme of life of the regime of status; that is, they
are in substance an expression of sportsmanship--of the predatory and
animistic habit of mind; that is, they indicate an archaic point of view
and theory of life, which may fit the predatory stage of culture and of
economic organization from which they have sprung, but which are,
from the point of v