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
observances which are classed under the general head of manners
hold a more important place in the esteem of men during the stage
of culture at which conspicuous leisure has the greatest vogue as
a mark of reputability, than at later stages of the cultural
development. The barbarian of the quasi-peaceable stage of
industry is notoriously a more high-bred gentleman, in all that
concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men
of a later age. Indeed, it is well known, or at least it is
currently believed, that manners have progressively deteriorated
as society has receded from the patriarchal stage.
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