isure class in the past and have been somewhat painstakingly conserved
by the usage of the latter-day representatives of that class; and these
canons will not permit him, without blame, to seek contact with nature
on other terms. From being an honorable employment handed down from the
predatory culture as the highest form of everyday leisure, sports have
come to be the only form of outdoor activity that has the full sanction
of decorum. Among the proximate incentives to shooting and angling,
then, may be the need of recreation and outdoor life. The remoter cause
which imposes the necessity of seeking these objects under the cover of
systematic slaughter is a prescription that can not be violated except
at the risk of disrepute and consequent lesion to one's self-respect.

The case of other kinds of sport is somewhat similar. Of these, athletic
games are the best example. Prescriptive usage with respect to what
forms of activity, exercise, and recreation are permissible under the
code of reputable living is of course present here also. Those who are
addicted to athletic sports, or who admire them, set up the claim that
these afford the best available means of recreation and of "physical
culture." And prescriptive usage gives countenance to the claim. The
canons of reputable living exclude from the scheme of life of the
leisure class all activity that can not be classed as conspicuous
leisure. And consequently they tend by prescription to exclude it also
from the scheme of life of the community generally. At the same
time purposeless physical exertion is tedious and distasteful beyond
tolerance. As has been noticed in another connection, recourse is in
such a case had to some form of activity which shall at least afford
a colorable pretense of purpose, even if the object assigned be only a
make-believe. Sports satisfy these requirements of substantial futility
together with a colorable make-believe of purpose. In addition to
this they afford scope for emulation, and are attractive also on that
account. In order to be decorous, an employment must conform to the
leisure-class canon of reputable waste; at the same time all activity,
in order to be persisted in as an habitual, even if only partial,
expression of life, must conform to the generically human canon of
efficiency for some serviceable objective end. The leisure-class canon
demands strict and comprehensive futility, the instinct of workmanship
demands purposeful acti