There is a prevalent aesthetic or ethical predilection
for the barbarian aptitudes, and the traits in question minister
so effectively to this predilection that their serviceability in
the aesthetic or ethical respect probably offsets any economic
unserviceability which they may give. But for the present purpose
that is beside the point. Therefore nothing is said here as to
the desirability or advisability of sports on the whole, or as to
their value on other than economic grounds.
In popular apprehension there is much that is admirable in the
type of manhood which the life of sport fosters. There is
self-reliance and good-fellowship, so termed in the somewhat
loose colloquial use of the words. From a different point of view
the qualities currently so characterized might be described as
truculence and clannishness. The reason for the current approval
and admiration of these manly qualities, as well as for their
being called manly, is the same as the reason for their
usefulness to the individual. The members of the community, and
especially that class of the community which sets the pace in
canons of taste, are endowed with this range of propensities in
sufficient measure to make their absence in others felt as a
shortcoming, and to make their possession in an exceptional
degree appreciated as an attribute of superior merit.
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