Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1904-07-08
COMMENCEMENT ECHOES,
Growth,

The following is an abstract of the
address delivered by DR.. Brainerd Kel-
logg, Dean of Brooklyn Polytechnic Insti-
tute, Sunday morning of Commence
ment week.
know of nothing else that so inspires
rigorous thought and stirs the wing of
imagination as do the phnOmena of
growth. Growth is a law transcending
of even gravitation in its reach, for it holds
immaterial things as well as of material
Rocks grow when matter is subjected to
pressure and particle clings to particle by
simple adhesion. Substances grow in
and out of the laboratory, when molecule
rushes into the arms of molecule by
chemical affinity Metals grow where
ore is smelted, and the glowing mass
cools and hardens so that heat alone can
loosen the grip of atoms. Bars of iron
heated to redness and joined one to
another grow together under the we'd
ding blows of the hammer. Plants and
trees grow, the indigenous from within
and through the stem, and the exogen-
Gus from Withdrawing encircling ring
and each growing to the one it touches
Two summers ago | wandered day
beneath the giant Sequoias of California,
even when decapitated seemed to bear
up the blue dome overhead and allowed
the "dim religious light only to filter
between their branches and fleck the
floor of this primeval temple of nature.
One of these ancients of days near US
had fallen and its concentric rings had
been counted. Their number fell Just
short of 5000. The tree had reached and
passed its noon of life when Christ was
on earth leading his disciples over the
hills round about Jerusalem.
Animals grow, every organ lengthen-
ing, and increasing in size and strength.
And If you and | at II or - could think
the thought and perform an act OF will
impossible to us at } or l0-and who of us
could not? we may convert, grow into
a metaphor, and truthfully, though in
figure, say that in all its activities and in
power the human mind grows. TO this
growth of midland in mind include
all there is Of us that is not matter-let
me triefly direct your attention, young
men Of the graduating class.
The mind grows by feeding upon food
outside of itself. Shut up within the
dark cell of the body, with every door Of
eGresS and ingress Theoretically sealed
from birth, the mind would die of mani
side Of itself but it gets from it sensa-
tions and perceptions, and upon these 1t
feeds and grows. Over and over again
the same objects make upon any mind
essentially the same impressions, and
upon other minds as well. But the sum
Of external being is not thus diminished,
however ravenously the mind reeds upon
il. for, as Just said, the mind does not
material substance, but only those impon-
derable something's that matter yields it
without loss of any kind to itself. These
perceptions any mind may weave into
diverse fabrics of thoughts, and with it
every other mind may do the ike. Nay,
more! THESE sense acquisitions which
the mind digests into knowledge and
converts into thought it transmutes into
power and personality, while yet they live
on as mere dcquisitiOns-ea each of them At
| the same time an item Of knowledge. an
element of thought, part of the tissue
, of mind and an increment of It's power,
and vet all the while remaining simple
acquisition, ready for other ,raufOrma-
ton and uses. This is the miracle OF which
nothing in the world of matter furnishes
parallel or even a hint Whatever
| there exists in one form cannot mean
while exist in another. Whatever there
is used by a cannot simultaneously be
used by Is. a rafter in my house cannot
at the same time be sill IN il also, and
can be neither a rafter nor sill IN anyone
else's house, The principles mmutable
respecting matter, maintaining its ident-
ity and forbidding its increase or dimin-
utiOn, or its presence at the same mo-
ment in many places and forms and
| functions are completely set at nOught
/ in the world of mind.
/ The growth Of all living things is
| through selection Of their food. The
tree selects, but it does so without any
real choice. 1t takes and it leaves with
out self-determination or ability to dc
Otherwise than it does. And it uses
what it takes without freedom as 60 how
and when 1t shall do it, or volition
as to where in the organism the food
shall 80 or what service it shall there
perform: the mind takes what il pleases
and does with it what it pleases and how
and when it pleases. II may misuse its
food, may devour even poisonous food
to its own harm, doubtless, but il may
do it nevertheless.
The mind grows not only by what il
feeds upon but by its own activity. So
important a factor of growth is this that
the mind is perpetually lured on to it by
the exquisite pleasure attending it. The
simple act of getting its food or Of con-
vertng it into root or bark or bole or
leaf does not produce growth in the
organ getting or Transforming the juices
imbibed from the soil or the carbon in
hailed from the air. All the parts grow
but only by the deposit of matter derived
from without; the mind grows by mere
exercise by selecting aud rejecting,
acquiring and assimilating its acquisi-
tions, learning and brooding over its
knowledge, detecting the relation of idea
to idea, of fact to fact, and of thought to
thought, and building them all up into
science or philosophy, or into literatures
that embody what we think and feel and
imagine, and to which we give express
sion that we may nourish growth in
others. Exercise is the very life of the
mind; it lives only as it energies. Could
we still all its energies at once, | cannot
help thinking that we should eXtinguish
mind itself. And not only is activity g
Il. 1 -