TOWARDS A THEORY OF LIFE 1389 



newcomers find it hard to enter its average mass: hence have often 

 to begin at lowest ; yet with fresh mind and powers, of active effi- 

 ciency, they even rise to the top. Urban youth, even when not 

 deteriorated to townhng, is seldom fitted for undertaking country 

 labours, even were these easily to be found; hence seldom before 

 age and prosperous retirement does the townsman settle in the 

 country at all; yet then with higher status than its average; in fact, 

 so much so as often to afford a main inducement tempting him 

 there. Thus, at best, may come improvement of rural work and 

 conditions. In such interchanges the co-operation of rural and 

 urban life and thought become clear; and the advancement of this 

 at its best, the abatement of it at its worst, is thus a main problem 

 of contemporary life and civilisation. 

 Though the lot of the peasant, in not a few past historic periods, 



NATURE STUDIES 

 I — Nature Study 



1. Nature Study and its Outlooks. 



2. Excursion, 



3. The Web of Nature, 



4. Nature in Contrasted Aspects, 



5. Nature in Growth and Integration, 



6. Nature Survey (Excursion). 



II — Life Study, and Treatment 



7. Ecological Survey (Excursion). 



8. The Unity of Life, 



9. Experimental Control of Life, 



10. The Life in Tanks, 



11. Agriculture in India, 



12. Forestry and its Significance (Excursion). 



Ill — Life in Change; and Theories of Evolution 



13. Darwinism and Post-Darwinian Theories, 



14. Theories of Sex and Variation, 



15. Nature as Protean and Progressive, 



16. Death and Life in Conflict in Science, 



17. Nature-Resources and their Control (Material and Educational), 



18. Excursion and Discussion. 



IV — Ideals of Life, in Evolution 



19. The Curve of Life, 



20. Through Mechanism to Vitalism, 



21. Education as Psycho-organic and Psycho-social, 



22. Life's Evils, Diseases, and Burdens, 



23. PossibiUties of Individual and Family Development, 



24. Excursion and Discussion. 



