Before the development of industry, the leisure class was synonymous with the nobility or the priesthood. To belong to the nobility it was necessary to possess the predatory instinct to a marked degree, in order to gain material advantage, especially in an age when wealth was more limited than at present and carried with it almost unlimited power. Sometimes when an individual accumulated much material wealth he was admitted into the noble class, and often into the priesthood. Although the priesthood loaned its power to the nobility to fortify its temporal authority, it taught equality in the spiritual realm. The greater ease with which the priesthood could be entered opened a larger field for the ambitious youth whose mind craved stimulation. His economic condition had to be such as to free him from the responsibility of providing for others, as well as sufficient to afford him an education. When he had once attained his goal, and belonged to the priestly class, he reached a status in life exclusive by virtue of its prestige, and in no wise divorced from material wealth. Learning in the past depended upon the individual’s ability to live without productive employment, and a willingness to devote himself to the learned arts which had no economic significance. Here we find a combination of democratic and aristocratic ideals. When marked intellectual ability was manifest, it was not uncommon for one of humble origin to attain a position of distinction in the church. Once in the church he belonged to an exclusive class surrounding itself with rituals and ceremonials. The nobility of the land received a rude shock from the development of industry, but the church always allied itself to those who were most able to give, and did not hesitate to sacrifice the temporal aristocracy in order to maintain the spiritual one. Although learning “set out with being in some sense a by-product of the priestly vicarious class” it has had to submit to democratic influences which grew out of industrial changes. These influences are most significant in the spread of the rudiments of learning among the common people, and the greater the opportunities for a common school education, the greater the possibility for the individual to enter the field of higher learning when the opportunity presents itself. But to enter this field is to depart from the practical affairs of life and to devote oneself, if breadwinning were essential, to imparting this knowledge to others. This applies to the practice of acquiring knowledge for the sake of learning and not for its practical application, as for instance in medicine.