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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Cooper
+       The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4
+
+Author: Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+Release Date: August 31, 2008 [EBook #26498]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER COOPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Biographical Series
+
+NUMBER 4
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+BY
+
+ROSSITER W. RAYMOND
+
+
+
+
+
+=The Riverside Biographical Series=
+
+          1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN.
+          2. JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW.
+          3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE.
+          4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND.
+          5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN.
+          6. WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES.
+          7. GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN.
+          8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON.
+          9. JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER.
+          10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by CHAS. A. CONANT.
+          11. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H. W. BOYNTON.
+          12. PAUL JONES, by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD.
+          13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W. G. BROWN.
+          14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. SEDGWICK, Jr.
+
+          Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure
+          portrait, 65 cents, _net_; _School Edition_, each,
+          50 cents, _net_.
+
+          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (signed) Peter Cooper]
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+BY
+
+ROSSITER W. RAYMOND
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+          =The Riverside Press Cambridge=
+
+
+
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.
+          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                   PAGE
+  PREFACE                                  vii
+     I. ANCESTRY                             1
+    II. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH                   10
+   III. BUSINESS VENTURES                   16
+    IV. INVENTIONS                          29
+     V. THE TOM THUMB                       38
+    VI. MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS                   52
+   VII. THE COOPER UNION FOR THE
+          ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART    64
+  VIII. NATIONAL POLITICS                   96
+    IX. THE END                            104
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+DURING the last decade of Peter Cooper's life, the writer of this
+biographical sketch enjoyed some degree of intimacy with him, as
+professional adviser and traveling companion, and also, incidentally, as
+consulting engineer of the firm of Cooper and Hewitt, and manager of a
+department in the Cooper Union. This circumstance, together with the
+preference kindly expressed by Mr. Cooper's family, doubtless influenced
+the selection of the writer for the honorable task of preparing this
+book,--a task which was welcome as a labor of love, though the execution
+of it has been hindered and impaired by the demands of other duties. The
+real difficulty has been to compress within the prescribed limits a
+story covering so many years and so many topics, yet not possessing
+those features of dramatic action or adventure which could be treated
+briefly, with picturesque effect.
+
+Mr. Cooper's family has kindly furnished abundant material for this
+work, including, besides his own published utterances, the notes of the
+stenographer to whom Mr. Cooper, in the last years of his life, dictated
+his "reminiscences." The use which has been made of these will be
+evident to the reader. Beyond an occasional revelation of the character
+of the speaker, or a side-light thrown upon the manners and conditions
+of our early national life, they have not furnished valuable data; and
+the study of them suggests an observation which may be heeded with
+advantage in similar cases hereafter, though it comes too late to be
+useful in this instance, namely, that the recollections of old people
+with retentive memories, like Peter Cooper, may be invaluable, if they
+are intelligently aroused and guided; but if the speakers (as in his
+case) are left to their own initiative, they are too likely to furnish
+superfluous accounts of events already described more accurately in
+authentic contemporaneous records.
+
+It has not been practicable to preserve, in the treatment of the
+subject, a strictly chronological order. As the titles of the several
+chapters indicate, the different lines of Mr. Cooper's activity have
+been considered, to some extent, separately, so that their periods
+overlap each other.
+
+This sketch of Mr. Cooper's career furnishes the elements of an
+analysis, which I introduce here, as a guide in the interpretation of
+what is to follow.
+
+1. The time of his birth and the prophetic anticipations of his parents
+profoundly influenced his ambition to do something great for his
+fellow-citizens of the republic whose life began so nearly with his own.
+
+2. The atmosphere surrounding his youth was one of unlimited and
+audacious adventure. New institutions, a virgin continent, the ardent
+desire to be independent of the Old World, and a profound belief in the
+destiny of America, all combined to stimulate endeavor. What Peter
+Cooper said of himself as an apprentice was true of the typical young
+American of his time: "I was always planning and contriving, and was
+never satisfied unless I was doing something difficult--something that
+had never been done before, if possible."
+
+3. The new freedom and the vast opportunity presented in the young
+republic encouraged, to a degree not paralleled before or since, that
+change of occupation which, with all its drawbacks, had the one great
+merit that it educated men to various activities. It was no disgrace to
+an American to go into one business after another, seeking the one which
+would prove most profitable and agreeable. Thus, Peter Cooper worked
+successively as a hatter, a coach-builder, a machinist, a machine-maker,
+a grocer, an iron-worker, and a glue-manufacturer, achieving success in
+every occupation, but abandoning each for something more promising, and
+learning in each something which promoted his success in the next.
+
+4. At every stage of his progress, he followed the ideal of personal
+independence, the honest acquisition of property, the establishment of a
+home, and the rearing of a family. These were the first duties and the
+dearest wishes--no matter what greater things might lie beyond. And he
+profoundly realized that temperance, industry, frugality, and patience
+were the necessary preliminaries to any longed-for achievement. As he
+says, he had first to spend thirty years in getting a start; then to
+spend another thirty years in accumulating the means for further advance
+into the wider sphere of his aspirations. And during each stage of this
+process, he was patient, as well as hopeful, neither wasting his
+energies in visionary schemes nor allowing the eddies of daily toil to
+divert the current of his deeper purposes.
+
+5. At every stage, however, he found himself hindered by lack of
+thorough knowledge. He invented perpetually and profusely; but some of
+his most cherished inventions did not find practical recognition,
+because he had attempted the premature or the impossible. His guiding
+principle, of trying to do something that had never been done before, is
+not an adequate substitute for a scientific knowledge of what can be,
+and now needs to be, done. He found himself often too far in advance of
+his generation. Moreover, he found that the lack of education crippled
+him in the attempt to make other men understand and appreciate his
+fruitful ideas. This is true of all really great "self-made men." They
+may have achieved success and fame in spite of early disadvantages; they
+may, perhaps, recognize the fact that such disadvantages, necessitating
+a stern struggle, have sifted out, by natural selection, the possessors
+of genius and sterling character; but not one of them fails to lament
+the lack of that early training which would have made him still more
+successful than he is; and not one of them fails to desire, for his
+children and the coming generation of his fellows, the early advantages
+which were denied to himself.
+
+6. This experience it was which gave form to the aspirations and
+purposes of Peter Cooper. As an apprentice, he resolved to do something
+for the benefit of apprentices--to found some institution which should
+supplement the deficiencies of early education, furnishing to virtuous,
+industrious, and ambitious youths the means of progress, and attracting
+the thoughtless or indolent into the same ascending road. How this
+conception came to be both modified and realized will be seen in later
+pages. At this point it is sufficient to note that the plan was
+originally not only philanthropic, but patriotic and practical. It
+contemplated the benefit, through means adapted to their special
+condition, of Americans of that class to which Peter Cooper himself
+belonged.
+
+Some further observations concerning the secret of the universal esteem
+and affection enjoyed by Mr. Cooper will be reserved for the closing
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ANCESTRY
+
+
+OBADIAH COOPER, who, with his two brothers, came from England to the
+colony of New York about 1662, belonged, as we may infer with
+confidence, to that sturdy class of republican yeomanry which found the
+restored reign of the Stuarts intolerable. He settled at
+Fishkill-on-the-Hudson; and his son Obadiah--whom tradition declares to
+have been the fourth white man child born in what is now Dutchess
+County--was the great-grandfather of Peter Cooper. In 1720 an Obadiah of
+the next generation followed, and of his son John, born in 1755, Peter
+Cooper was the fifth child.
+
+John Cooper came of age in the year of the Declaration of Independence.
+In the issue between the British government and the American colonies
+his choice could not be doubtful. He followed the traditions of his
+family. Indeed, it is now well established and universally admitted that
+the patriots of the American Revolution were not in fact arrayed against
+England. They were engaged in a struggle which was but a part of the
+great conflict waged against shortsighted and obstinate tyranny by
+Englishmen on both sides of the ocean, and in which the victory for
+liberty was won on this side sooner than on the other. What the Coopers
+and their kind achieved here was applauded openly in the mother country
+by the descendants of a common ancestry as a triumph for the common
+cause. The use of foreign mercenaries under British commanders in this
+country was the direct result of the impossibility of inducing
+Englishmen to enlist for service against their American kinsmen. Hence
+when John Cooper, of Fishkill, abandoned in 1776 the business he had
+just established as a hatter, and became sergeant in a company of
+"minute-men," he was but pursuing the course indicated both by his own
+convictions and by the history of his fathers and the sympathies of the
+party in England to which they had belonged. It was Freedom's battle
+"handed down from sire to son."
+
+He served subsequently for two years in the Continental line, and for
+the last four years of the war as a lieutenant in the New York militia,
+actively employed in the perilous service of protecting life, property,
+and the public stores in the zone of debatable territory,--the "bloody
+ground" which surrounded the British lines in New York. At the close of
+the war, New York having been evacuated by the enemy, Lieutenant John
+Cooper retired to civil life, and resumed business as a hatter in that
+city,--a worthy example of that American citizen soldiery which has
+always been equally ready to leave the ways of peace for its country's
+defense, and to return to them when the exigency had passed.
+
+It was in 1779, during his military service, that John Cooper married
+Margaret, the daughter of John Campbell, a deputy quartermaster-general
+in the Continental army, and a trusted agent of Washington. The outbreak
+of hostilities in 1776 had found John Campbell a prosperous merchant and
+owner of real estate in New York city. He at once lent to the
+Revolutionary government eleven hundred guineas,--the whole of his ready
+money,--entered the service, was made deputy quartermaster-general, and
+was directed to superintend the hasty evacuation of the city by the Whig
+inhabitants, and to protect them and their property as far as possible.
+Lingering too long to assist some of the laggards, he was captured by
+the forces landed from the British fleet, but was subsequently released;
+and he made a temporary home at Fishkill while actively engaged in
+establishing the lines by which the British army, though holding the
+city and commanding its access to the sea, was practically besieged.
+General Campbell served throughout the war, and after hostilities had
+ceased commanded the troops at West Point until they were finally
+disbanded in 1785.
+
+It is easy to imagine how the young lieutenant and the daughter of the
+commander who must have been frequently brought into personal relations
+with him may have met and loved and wedded in the midst of those
+troublous times, but the romance would have no special bearing on this
+history. It is enough to say that by this marriage the best blood of
+England and Scotland--of servants of God and lovers of freedom--was
+blended in the nine children, seven sons and two daughters, of whom
+Peter Cooper--born February 12, 1791, in Little Dock (now Water) Street,
+New York--was the fifth.
+
+John Cooper was not characteristically a seer of visions or a dreamer of
+dreams. On the contrary, the accounts of him which have come down to us
+describe him as a stalwart athlete, who "could lift a barrel of cider
+from the ground and put it in a wagon," and who once, being cornered and
+attacked by a bull, seized the animal's nose with one hand and so
+battered its head with a stone that it was glad to turn and fly. Yet he
+came of a race that believed in Divine guidance; and on one occasion at
+least he acted upon that belief in a matter then deemed more important,
+perhaps, than now. The incident can be given best in the words of Peter
+Cooper himself, who wrote:--
+
+"My father used to tell me how he came to call me Peter. When I was born
+he became strongly impressed with the idea that I would some day have
+more than ordinary fame, and what name he should give me was a matter of
+serious and frequent thought. While walking on Broadway one dark night
+it seemed as though a voice spoke to him in a clear and distinct manner:
+'Call him Peter!' That seeming voice settled my name. My father said
+that he felt that I was to be of great good in some way; and his
+remarks, with my mother's, concerning their aspirations and hopes for me
+acted as a stimulus and made me anxious to fulfill their wishes, and not
+disappoint them."
+
+If names were to be characteristic of individual careers, it might be
+better to imitate some Indian tribes, and to give the permanent name
+only after the career, or at least the character, of its recipient had
+been indicated by his acts. In this instance the subsequent life of the
+son did not in any peculiar way imitate that of the Apostle Peter.
+Evidently not that particular name, but the simple fact that an eminent
+name, thus suggested and not already familiar in his family, had been
+given to him, produced upon his mind the effect to which he testifies.
+
+But why should practical John Cooper be disposed to anticipate a special
+distinction for the infant who was the fifth of his numerous progeny?
+From the standpoint of the modes of thought of the godly patriots of
+that generation, and of their ancestors, the English Puritans and the
+Scotch Covenanters, it is scarcely hazardous to assume that current
+public affairs largely affected such domestic choices. Peter Cooper's
+birth was practically simultaneous with the launching of that Ship of
+State, the "Union, strong and great," in which all patriots had embarked
+"their hopes, triumphant o'er their fears." To his veteran-soldier
+father he was the first child of the new era; and the dreams that were
+dreamed over him were doubtless connected with that glorious future
+which had just dawned upon the federated republic. The choice of an
+unfamiliar, non-hereditary name, however suggested, symbolized the break
+between the old time and the new.
+
+Above all, this incident produced in the son thus christened the
+profoundest effects, the deepest motives, that can inspire a boyish
+soul,--the belief in a beneficent mission, the yearning to discover it,
+the resolve to execute it, and the conviction that it was to be directly
+connected with the prosperity and progress of the great nation, the life
+of which began with his own.
+
+The naming of Peter Cooper thus strikes the keynote, or, more
+accurately, the triple chord, of his life. For he was first of all an
+American, keenly aware of the opportunities offered by the free
+institutions of his country to individual ambition, industry, and
+genius, and of his own personal ability to make use of these
+opportunities. Secondly, he was a lover of his fellow men, determined to
+employ for their benefit the means and powers which he felt himself able
+to accumulate by thought, toil, and frugal economy. Thirdly, he was even
+in his philanthropy essentially still an American, intent most of all
+upon the welfare of those classes of his countrymen with whose struggles
+and needs his own early life had made him familiar. In other words,
+while his philanthropy covered a world-wide range, his peculiar mission,
+as he conceived it, was indissolubly blent with the success of the
+republic of which he was one of the earliest-born sons.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
+
+
+AT a meeting of friends, gathered February 12, 1882, to celebrate his
+ninety-first birthday anniversary, Mr. Cooper, after expressing his
+thanks for their congratulatory good wishes, and observing that in his
+case "length of days had not yet resulted in weariness of spirit," added
+this review of his life:--
+
+"Looking back, I can see that my career has been divided into three
+eras. During the first thirty years I was engaged in getting a start in
+life; during the second thirty years I was occupied in getting means for
+carrying out the modest plan which I had long formed for the benefit of
+my fellow men; and during the last thirty years I have devoted myself to
+the execution of these plans. This work is now done."
+
+Accepting this division of his career, as convenient, though not
+strictly accurate (since the processes described really overlapped
+instead of separately succeeding one another), we may consider first Mr.
+Cooper's means and method of achieving personal success; and in this
+survey the conditions of his boyhood and early youth are primarily
+important.
+
+While he was still very young, the family removed from a temporary
+residence of three years in New York city to Peekskill, where he
+remained until, at the age of seventeen, he returned to New York as an
+apprentice, to be, thenceforward, dependent upon his own exertions for a
+living.
+
+The intervening period was spent in ways characteristic of the period
+and of the individual. He attended school for three or four "quarters,"
+of which period, according to his later recollection, "probably half was
+occupied by 'half-day' school." Outside of this scanty formal
+instruction, there is ample evidence that he developed body and mind in
+varied work and play. He bore to the end of life the scars of youthful
+escapades, witnessing the adventurous spirit of his boyhood. When only
+four years old, he climbed about the framework of a new house, and fell,
+head downward, upon an iron kettle, cutting his forehead to the bone.
+Later on, he was accidentally cut with a knife in the hands of a
+playmate. Later still, he cut himself dangerously with an axe. Again, he
+fell from a high tree, holding an iron hook with which he had been
+reaching for cherry-bearing branches, and managed to hook out one of his
+teeth. At another time he went for the nest of a hanging-bird, and had
+the fact that it was a hornet's nest indelibly impressed on his memory.
+Of course, he was nearly drowned three times,--such youngsters always
+have such escapes. In short, he was a thorough boy, adventuring all
+things, daunted by nothing, and protected from the results of his
+reckless endeavors by that Providence which watches over small boys.
+
+But such a temperament finds play in useful work also. The boy learned
+every department of the hat-making business, beginning, when he was very
+young, with pulling the fur from the skins of rabbits. And, while
+assisting his mother in doing the family washing, he made what was,
+perhaps, his first invention,--a mechanical arrangement for pounding the
+soiled linen. Again, after carefully dissecting an old shoe, to learn
+how it was put together, he determined to make shoes and slippers for
+the family, and succeeded in turning out products of manufacture which
+were said to be as good as those to be found, at that day, in the
+regular trade.
+
+He constructed a toy wagon, sold it for six dollars, managed to gather
+four dollars more, invested the ten dollars in lottery tickets, and drew
+only blanks, of which experience he said many years later, "I consider
+it one of the best investments of my life; for I then learned that it
+was not my _forte_ to make money at games of chance."
+
+When he was between thirteen and fourteen years old, his father built a
+large malt-house at Newburg, and the son loaded with his own hands and
+carted to the site selected all the stone for the building. Collecting
+wild honey and shooting game in the forests around Peekskill were
+additional employments which combined pleasure with profit. But this
+life did not satisfy the ambition of the youth; and in 1808, at the age
+of seventeen, he left the paternal roof and apprenticed himself for four
+years to John Woodward, a leading coach-builder in New York, whose shop
+was located on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, then the
+northerly edge of the city, opposite a vegetable garden, the remnants of
+which, after the occupation of a large portion by city, county, and
+national buildings, now constitute the City Hall Park. The terms of his
+employment were his board and a salary of twenty-five dollars a
+year,--out of which he managed not only to pay all obligations, but also
+to lay by a little money. During this period he not only mastered the
+details of the trade, but learned in his hours of leisure other
+branches, such as ornamental wood-carving, and made several inventions,
+one of which was a machine for mortising hubs,--an operation performed
+by hand up to that time. Another invention over which the young
+apprentice dreamed, and of which he laboriously constructed a model, was
+an apparatus for utilizing, in the running of machinery, the swift
+current of the tide in the East River.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+BUSINESS VENTURES
+
+
+AT the end of his apprenticeship, his employer offered to set him up in
+business as a coach-builder, lending him the necessary capital. Many
+years later, Mr. Cooper told the story thus:--
+
+"I was about to accept his generous offer, when an incident occurred
+which changed my decision. Mr. Woodward had just completed one of the
+finest coaches ever built in New York, for a gentleman who was supposed
+to be one of the richest men in the city. But a day or two before the
+coach was to be delivered the gentleman died, and it was then found that
+he was insolvent. This made me hesitate. If I should accept my
+employer's kind offer and have such a misfortune happen to me in the
+sale of an elegant and expensive coach, I should consider myself a slave
+for life, since the law of imprisonment for debt had not then been
+abolished. So I changed my plans, and went to Hempstead, Long Island, to
+visit my brother."
+
+The visit to Hempstead became a prolonged residence. He obtained work at
+$1.50 a day (then regarded as high wages) in a factory making machines
+for shearing cloth, and after nearly three years had saved enough money
+to purchase the right for the State of New York to a patented machine
+for that purpose. He used to tell, in his old age, of his elation when
+he effected his first sale of a county-right, for which he received five
+hundred dollars from Mr. Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, afterwards the founder
+of Vassar College.
+
+The manufacture and sale of the new shearing-machine, into which Mr.
+Cooper introduced many additional improvements, was a prosperous
+business, especially during the war of 1812, when domestic woolen goods
+were in great demand. He married, December 18, 1813, Sarah Bedell, a
+lady of Huguenot descent, who made for him a happy home during
+fifty-seven years.[1] He bought a house in Hempstead, expecting to
+remain there; and in the household, as in business, he gave rein to his
+ardent and versatile inventive faculty. One of his domestic contrivances
+rocked the cradle, fanned away the flies, and played a lullaby to the
+baby. He sold the patent in Connecticut to a Yankee peddler for a horse
+and wagon, and the peddler's stock, including a hurdy-gurdy. Another
+invention was a machine for mowing grass, constructed on the principle
+of his cloth-shearing machine.
+
+But after the war, the domestic woolen mills were shut down, and there
+was no sale for Mr. Cooper's machines. So he first turned his factory
+into a furniture shop, and then, selling it for what he could get, he
+moved to New York, and started in the grocery business, buying for this
+purpose a long lease of the ground where the Bible House now stands,
+opposite the Cooper Union on Ninth Street. Upon this ground he erected
+several buildings, one of which he used as his office. The business was
+profitable; but the real foundation of Mr. Cooper's wealth was laid
+when, at the age of thirty-three, he purchased a glue factory, situated
+where the Park Avenue Hotel now stands, and established himself as a
+glue manufacturer. The business speedily acquired and held for half a
+century practically the whole trade of the country in glue and
+isinglass,--a monopoly fairly earned by the cheapness and excellence of
+its product.
+
+Mr. Cooper's inventions improved the quality and reduced the cost of his
+product, while his energy, industry, and frugality steadily increased
+his surplus cash, and enabled him, without borrowing capital, to extend
+his sphere of operations. For many years, he carried on his glue
+business without bookkeeper, agent, or salesman. Dawn found him at the
+suburban factory (on what is now Thirty-Second Street) lighting the
+fires and preparing for the day's work; at noon, he drove in his buggy
+to the city, where he made his own sales and purchases; and all his
+evenings he spent at home, making up his accounts, answering his
+correspondents, studying out new inventions, or talking and reading to
+his wife and children.
+
+By these simple, old-fashioned methods he built up a business and
+accumulated a fortune too large to be thus administered. It would have
+been impossible for one head to carry the details of work and
+management, for one pair of eyes to superintend each part of the work,
+or for one pair of feet, however tireless, to travel all the ways which
+lead to and from a great modern industrial establishment. Still less
+could financial direction and protection be compassed by the simple
+scheme which Mr. Cooper, in his old age, recalled with pride. "I used,"
+he said once, "to pay all my debts every Saturday night; and I knew
+that what I had left was my own!" This could not have been strictly
+true; but it doubtless expressed an old man's memory of the way he
+began, and the principles he had followed, with that horror of debt
+which dated from the time when debtors could be put in jail. Fortunately
+for Mr. Cooper, his son Edward, and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt,
+were at hand to undertake the management of his business enterprises at
+the time when his own simple methods would have proved inadequate, so
+that his inventive genius, adventurous courage, and, above all, intense
+philanthropy, were backed with ample means.
+
+In this account of his business ventures (though of much later date than
+those already mentioned) the part played by Peter Cooper in the
+development of the American iron industry and in the construction of the
+first transatlantic submarine telegraph may be recorded.
+
+The manufacture of iron was one of the early industries of the American
+colonies, and after the Revolution it was prosecuted with increased
+activity in small and primitive establishments. With its development
+into scientific forms on a large scale Mr. Cooper was both directly and
+indirectly connected. His Ringwood estate in New Jersey had been the
+scene of the operations of the Ringwood Company in 1740, and of its
+successors,--Hasenclever (1764) and Erskine (1771); and the Durham
+furnace, on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania (on the site of the
+Durham Iron Works of Cooper & Hewitt), made its first blast in 1727. Mr.
+Cooper himself was engaged in 1830 in the manufacture of charcoal iron
+near Baltimore, and in 1836, together with his brother Thomas, he
+operated a rolling-mill in New York (on Thirty-Third Street, near Third
+Avenue). At this mill anthracite was used for puddling in 1840. In 1845
+the business was removed to Trenton, N. J.; and in the new
+rolling-mill--then the largest in the United States--built at Trenton
+for the manufacture of rails, the first iron beams for buildings were
+rolled in 1854. By the erection of blast furnaces at Phillipsburg and
+Ringwood, N. J., and Durham, Pa., and the addition of wire mills, bridge
+shop, chain shop, etc., to the works at Trenton, the purchase of iron
+and coal lands, and the development of numerous mines, the firm of
+Cooper & Hewitt achieved high rank among the ironmasters of America; and
+the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain conferred upon Peter
+Cooper in 1879 the "Bessemer gold medal" for his services in the
+development of the American iron trade. In 1890 the same honor was given
+to Mr. Abram S. Hewitt in recognition of the experiments at Phillipsburg
+as early as 1856 to test the new invention of Bessemer, of his
+introduction of the open-hearth steel process into the United States,
+and of other services rendered to the steel industry,--in all of which
+he may be said to have followed, with the advantages of a wider culture
+and ampler means, the example set by Mr. Cooper.
+
+One of the boldest yet wisest and most profitable operations of Mr.
+Cooper was his investment in the Atlantic cable enterprise of Cyrus
+Field. He was already past middle age when this audacious scheme began
+to be dreamed of. In 1842 Morse had laid down an experimental cable from
+Castle Garden to Governor's Island in New York harbor, and claimed as a
+practical inference that a telegraphic communication on his plan could
+"with certainty be established across the Atlantic."[2] In 1851 the
+first cable was laid between France and England, and others rapidly
+followed on ocean lines over short distances. The principle was thus
+established, and the doubts as to its practical application to a line of
+at least twenty-five hundred miles were of such a character as to seem
+more serious to scientific men than to American capitalists of Mr.
+Cooper's type. In March, 1854, the New York, Newfoundland, & London
+Telegraph Company was organized, and Mr. Cooper became (and remained for
+twenty trying years) its president. There was little difficulty in
+raising the money for the eighty-five miles of cable which were to be
+laid under the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or in obtaining from the British
+colonies favorable charters granting exclusive privileges, land grants,
+and even subsidies. Yet the construction of the land line across
+Newfoundland to the terminus at Heart's Content proved difficult and
+costly, and the St. Lawrence cable was lost in laying. Yet additional
+capital was subscribed; and a couple of years later the Newfoundland
+line, the St. Lawrence cable, and another submarine link of thirteen
+miles across the Straits of Northumberland had been successfully
+finished. Nothing remained to be done _except_ the procuring of means
+and the devising of successful methods for the installation of the
+Atlantic cable itself, without which all this preliminary expenditure
+would have been thrown away.
+
+The capital estimated as necessary for making and laying the cable was
+raised by Mr. Field in England, where the Atlantic Telegraph Company was
+formed to construct and operate the line under concessions from the
+parent Newfoundland company. All classes in England felt a sentimental
+interest in the romantic enterprise; and the subscribers to the new
+stock included such men as Thackeray and others of equal note, outside
+of business circles altogether.
+
+The company proceeded with vigor,--secured from the governments of Great
+Britain and the United States guaranties of subsidies and the free use
+of ships for laying the cable; contracts for the cable and its
+insulating covering were executed; and by the end of July, 1857, the
+British Agamemnon and the American Niagara had each twelve hundred and
+fifty miles of it on board. In August they connected the two halves of
+it in mid-Atlantic, and in September the shore end was landed at Heart's
+Content.
+
+The sequel is familiar history. A few messages had been sent and
+received, when the current grew weaker and weaker, and at last failed
+entirely. The result was a strong reaction in popular sentiment. It was
+even questioned whether any messages had actually crossed the Atlantic.
+Fortunately this doubt could be conclusively disproved,--especially in
+England, where it was known that the British government had wired by the
+cable before its failure news of great political importance. The British
+company indeed courageously proceeded to make another cable; but when
+this parted in mid-ocean during the process of laying it even British
+tenacity of purpose was daunted, and for some two years the enterprise
+seemed to be dead. Meanwhile public opinion on this side was far more
+unfavorable, and the parent company found itself without means or
+credit. To retain its privileges it must pay additional money, and to
+make those privileges worth anything capital must be raised for a third
+attempt to lay the transatlantic line.
+
+Without describing in detail the difficulties and anxieties of this
+period, it may be said that the intelligent courage of Peter Cooper
+saved the enterprise, while it secured to him a large pecuniary reward;
+for he perceived that the real problem had been solved by the first
+apparent failure; that the failure of a cable in use or the loss of a
+cable in laying it were mere incidental misfortunes which more thorough
+precautions and better luck would preclude; and he backed with his own
+faith and money the undaunted enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence of Mr.
+Field, whose expenses he paid for another journey to England, and who
+succeeded at last in raising there the funds for the third and
+successful attempt. Moreover Mr. Cooper upheld the credit of the
+Newfoundland company, personally paying the drafts drawn upon it, and
+taking its bonds as his security. It is too much to say that the
+Atlantic cable would never have been laid, but there can be no doubt
+that the enterprise would have been long suspended, without this timely
+aid. The third cable was a success; the lost second was recovered and
+made useful; and now the thing is easy which thus seemed so
+problematical. If Peter Cooper received in the end a handsome sum from
+this investment, who could grudge him the wealth so acquired?
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Many years after his wife's death, and shortly before his own, Mr.
+Cooper dictated the following passage, which is almost the last in his
+_Reminiscences_:--
+
+"Not only do I think of my wife during my waking moments; she often
+comes to me in my dreams, sometimes once a week, sometimes once in two
+weeks, and sometimes at longer intervals. It is one of the greatest
+pleasures of my life that I can believe that she has been, and is now,
+my guardian angel, and it is one of my happiest hopes that I shall see
+that this our world is but the bud of a being that is to ripen and bear
+its choicest fruits in another and a better."
+
+[2] Letter of Morse to the Secretary of the Treasury in the autumn of
+1843.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+INVENTIONS
+
+
+THE inventions projected, though in many instances not perfected or
+successfully introduced, by Mr. Cooper constitute a long list and cover
+a wide field. A few of them may be mentioned here, in addition to those
+to which allusion has been made already. It will be seen that even those
+which failed of commercial success generally contained the germs of
+future mechanical progress, and bore witness to the extraordinary vigor
+and versatility of his genius.
+
+When the Erie Canal was approaching completion it occurred to Mr. Cooper
+that canal boats might be propelled by the power of water drawn from a
+higher level and moving a series of endless chains along the canal.
+After some preliminary experiments he built a flat-bottomed scow,
+arranged a water wheel to utilize the tidal current in the East River,
+and actually achieved a trial trip of two miles and return, in which
+Governor Clinton and other invited guests took part. The governor was so
+well pleased that he paid Mr. Cooper eight hundred dollars for the first
+chance to purchase the right of applying the method on the new canal.
+But the scheme failed for the reason (as Mr. Cooper explained half a
+century later) that the right of way for the Erie Canal had been secured
+from the farmers of the State by representing to them the profit which
+they would realize from selling forage, etc., for the use of canal
+boats, which were to be drawn by horses or mules. The introduction of
+mechanical power would destroy these inducements, and the plan was
+abandoned,--though Mr. Cooper had demonstrated its feasibility by
+running his endless chain on the East River for ten days and carrying
+hundreds of passengers over the trial route. It is not likely that such
+a use of water power on the Erie Canal would have proved practicable on
+a large scale; but the endless chain, which Mr. Cooper apparently
+considered as a minor feature only, has been adopted since, and lies at
+the basis of the famous Belgian system of river and canal
+transportation.
+
+In 1824 the wave of enthusiastic sympathy for the Greeks which swept
+over the country upon receipt of the tidings of their revolt against
+Turkish tyranny stimulated Mr. Cooper to invent a torpedo boat, to be
+steered from the shore by "two steel wires, like the reins of a horse."
+But on the trial trip of the boat a ship crossed and broke the wires
+when about six of their total length of ten miles had been let out. The
+delay made the invention too late for use by the Greeks, and it was not
+further pursued.
+
+About 1835 the subject of aerial navigation had in the United States one
+of its periodical revivals. Mr. Cooper, believing that a motive power
+developed from materials of small weight was essential to the solution
+of the problem, resolved to employ the explosive force of chloride of
+nitrogen,--one of the most dangerous compounds known to chemists. The
+result of his experiments in this direction was an explosion which blew
+his apparatus to pieces, and nearly cost the audacious inventor an eye.
+In fact, though the organ was saved from total destruction, it was
+permanently injured.
+
+The conveyance of freight by aerial cables--a method now widely
+used--was practiced by Mr. Cooper at an early day. The use of elevators
+in buildings was foreseen and provided for by him in the erection of the
+Cooper Union building, and in that building also he introduced for the
+first time iron beams as part of a fire-proof construction. In these and
+other inventions his prophetic intuitions were illustrated.
+
+But such intuitions do not fully take the place of scientific training;
+and one of the inventions of Peter Cooper--which he considered for many
+years, and possibly to the very last, as his crowning achievement--was a
+curious example of misdirected ingenuity. It is worthy of notice here,
+however, for another reason, namely, because of its accidental
+association with one of its inventor's most remarkable triumphs.
+
+As a young apprentice he had studied the steam engine, and had resolved
+that he would improve it by doing away with the crank. To his mind this
+was a source of great loss of power, and he believed that, if he could
+transform the rectilinear motion of the piston rod directly into rotary
+motion without the intervention of the crank, he would effect a notable
+economy.
+
+Now, there is no such loss of power through the crank as he imagined,
+nor is it likely that any other device for obtaining rotary from
+rectilinear motion will be found superior to that which Watt devised.
+But Peter Cooper assailed this fancied evil with undoubting confidence,
+both as to its existence and as to his ability to do away with it. The
+result was an invention for which he received, April 28, 1828, letters
+patent of the United States. At that early day patents were
+comparatively few,--so few that this one bears no number; and the duties
+of general administration did not prevent the highest officials from
+attending to details. This patent, issued to Peter Cooper, of New York,
+was personally signed by John Quincy Adams, President; countersigned by
+Henry Clay, Secretary of State; transmitted to William Wirt,
+Attorney-General; examined, approved, and signed by him, and returned to
+the Department of State for final delivery to the patentee. It grants
+for fourteen years to the said Peter Cooper, his heirs, administrators,
+and assignees the exclusive right to make, use, or license others to
+use, the described improvement in the method of effecting rotary motion
+directly from the alternate rectilinear motion of a steam piston.
+Evidently these distinguished statesmen--Adams, Clay, and Wirt--were not
+experts in mechanics, or at least did not undertake to hinder by
+technical criticism the experiments of American ambition; and there was
+no trained corps of patent-examiners to decide upon the novelty,
+practicability, and usefulness of any proposed improvement in the arts.
+Probably the government shared at that time the dominant American
+feeling of unconquerable youth, ready to attack all problems, especially
+those which previous experience had pronounced insoluble, and to
+determine the impossible by attempting it. This spirit has in fact more
+or less dominated the United States Patent Office down to the present
+time. With all its present equipment of examiners, trained in theory and
+versed in technical literature, it still concerns itself chiefly in the
+consideration of a proposed invention with the question of novelty,
+rather than that of feasibility or value; and the effect has been that,
+while thousands of patents are granted for absurd, unnecessary, or
+inoperative devices, the net result of the encouragement thus given to
+individual ingenuity and audacity is a catalogue of great inventions
+unmatched in the history of any other nation.
+
+The patent of Peter Cooper, which now lies before me,--a time-stained
+parchment bearing the great seal of the United States and the autographs
+of the famous men named above,--is accompanied by no drawings; but it
+contains a detailed specification which shows that the invention
+consisted in an arrangement by which, at each forward movement, a
+prolongation of the piston rod clawed into an endless chain, which was
+pulled back by the return stroke. This chain passed around a wheel, to
+which it consequently imparted a rotary motion.
+
+Engineers do not need to be told that this cumbrous arrangement could
+not successfully replace the crank, even if such a replacement were
+desirable. Yet the inventor constructed a working-machine, and satisfied
+himself, by a "duty trial" of some sort, that it "saved two fifths of
+the steam." His discovery, however, was not hailed with immediate
+recognition by the mechanical public; and its author, undisturbed in his
+faith, bided his time.
+
+This, by the way, points to a characteristic of Peter Cooper,
+differentiating him from the numerous enthusiasts whom prudent men are
+accustomed to avoid. He was not a man "of one idea." His fertile and
+ingenious mind threw out its suggestions in every direction, into fields
+untrodden by experience; but when any such plan failed of acceptance, he
+turned, with undiminished courage and hope, to something else,
+remaining, nevertheless, still steadfast in his former conception, and
+ready to seize any opportunity for its realization.
+
+Thus it came to pass that Mr. Cooper's abortive improvement upon the
+steam engine was the source of his fame as the builder of the first
+American locomotive, as the following chapter will explain.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE TOM THUMB
+
+
+IN the specification of the patent secured in 1828 by Mr. Cooper for an
+improved steam engine, he took pains to declare the suitability of his
+invention as a motor for "land carriages." No doubt he had heard of
+Stephenson's "Rocket," if not of the engine built by Blenkinsop in 1813,
+the sight of which in operation caused Stephenson to resolve that he
+would "make a better." The famous competitive trial of the Rocket, the
+Novelty, the Sanspareil, and the Perseverance, on a two-mile section of
+the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, took place in October, 1827, at
+which time Peter Cooper must have been perfecting the application for
+his patent.
+
+But other circumstances played their part in the result which we are
+about to consider. Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had been drawn into
+a land speculation at Canton, in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing of
+support from his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to
+assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was
+great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A
+little earlier, there had been general despair among the merchants of
+that city. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were seeking the trade
+of the region beyond the Alleghanies,--then "the West," but now the
+centre of the population of the United States. New York flanked the
+mountains with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia got at last a practicable,
+though less satisfactory, water line; but Baltimore, though nearest of
+all to the longed-for market, found, through careful examination by
+eminent engineers, that no canal was practicable for her, at a cost
+within her means. In 1824 and 1825 the consequent general despondency
+concerning the future of the city was so strong that Baltimore
+merchants began to move to New York and Philadelphia.[3]
+
+But at this period the world began to hear of railways. A well-known
+merchant of Baltimore, returning from England, described with enthusiasm
+the coal trains, drawn by the cumbrous ante-Stephenson engines, which he
+had seen there. The idea of a tramway (with or without steam motors)
+found ready acceptance in a community both enterprising and desperate. A
+town meeting, held in 1826, to consider Western communications, resulted
+in an application to the Maryland legislature, and the incorporation, in
+March, 1827, of the Baltimore and Ohio,--the first railroad company thus
+created in the United States for purposes of general transportation,--the
+leader of that vast multitude of similar enterprises, the history of
+which is the history of our nation's marvelous commercial progress. By
+the legislative charter, the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland
+were authorized to subscribe to the company's stock.
+
+In the address already cited, Mr. Latrobe, an eye-witness, says of the
+scenes which followed:--
+
+"Then came a scene which almost beggars description. By this time,
+public excitement had gone beyond fever heat and reached the boiling
+point. Everybody wanted stock. The number of shares subscribed were to
+be apportioned, if the limit of the capital should be exceeded; and
+every one set about obtaining proxies. Parents subscribed in the names
+of their children, and paid the dollar on each share that the rules
+prescribed. Before even a survey had been made, the possession of stock
+in any quantity was regarded as a provision for old age; and great was
+the scramble to obtain it. The excitement in Baltimore roused public
+attention elsewhere; and a railroad mania began to pervade the land."
+
+The proposed railroad was to pass through Mr. Cooper's Canton property,
+which he had already begun to develop, "so that it should pay the
+taxes," by building upon it charcoal kilns, after a design of his own,
+with the purpose of turning the forest into charcoal, and, by means of
+this fuel, smelting the iron ore which the land contained. What was the
+immediate commercial outcome of this enterprise is not recorded. Mr.
+Cooper's characteristic recollection, more than sixty years later, was
+that, "with the exception of a dangerous explosion," which nearly cost
+him his life, the charcoal kilns were "a great success!"
+
+But the great value of the property was expected to be realized through
+the new railroad; and this expectation suffered a serious blow when the
+horse cars failed to pay expenses; the operation of the line was
+suspended; the directors lost faith in the enterprise; and many of the
+principal stockholders declared that they would rather lose the
+investment made so far than "throw good money after bad." For the hope
+that the new agency of steam might help them out was blighted by the
+news from England that Stephenson had said that steam could not be used
+as a motive power on a road having curves of less than 900 feet radius;
+and this road had, at Point of Rocks, a necessary curve with a radius of
+only 150 feet!
+
+The situation presented exactly the sort of challenge calculated to
+arouse the courage and ingenuity of Peter Cooper, besides appealing to
+another of his personal characteristics, namely, his undying and
+unalterable faith in his own ideas and conclusions, whether they had
+achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not
+found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with
+undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real
+defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a
+providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could
+not run their locomotives around sharp curves, it must be because they
+persisted in using the vicious crank, which he had already superseded by
+his (temporarily unappreciated) invention! And, with unshaken faith in
+that device, he informed the Baltimore and Ohio directors (to use the
+words in which, long afterwards, he told the story) that he thought he
+"could knock together a locomotive which would get a train around the
+Point of Rocks."
+
+It is a curious circumstance that, ever since that day, the
+characteristic difference between English and American locomotives has
+been the ability of the latter to pass curves of shorter radius than the
+former can safely follow. The reason, as all railway engineers know, is
+that the usual English construction involves a rigid frame, while the
+American has a movable truck or "bogie" under the front part of the
+engine. This solution of the problem was not reached by Mr. Cooper. What
+he, in fact, accomplished was simply a piece of audacity, which
+encouraged the enterprise of his countrymen, by proving that the dictum
+of limited experience abroad was not conclusive. Two features of his
+Baltimore experiment were characteristic of him. The first was that he
+undertook it, not merely in order to vindicate his invention, but to
+effect a practical result, namely, to make his land speculation pay. And
+the second was that when he found it difficult to operate his pet
+invention in this experiment, he laid it aside at once,--without losing
+an atom of faith in it, but also without persisting (as a typical
+enthusiast would have done) in risking upon the vindication of his
+personal opinion in one matter the success of another undertaking, more
+immediately important.
+
+Mr. Cooper's own recollection of this event deserves to be told in his
+own words. He says:[4]--
+
+"I came back to New York for a little bit of a brass engine of
+mine--about one horse power (it had a 3� in. cylinder and 14 in.
+stroke)--and carried it back to Baltimore. I got some boiler iron and
+made a boiler about as high as an ordinary wash boiler; and then how to
+connect the boiler with the engine I didn't know. I couldn't find any
+iron pipes. The fact was that there were none for sale in this country.
+So I took two muskets, broke off the wooden parts, and used the barrels
+for tubing, one on one side and the other on the other side of the
+boiler. I went into a coach-maker's shop and made this locomotive, which
+I called the Tom Thumb, because it was so insignificant. I didn't intend
+it for actual service, but only to show the directors what could be
+done. I meant to test two things: first, I meant to show that short
+turns could be made; and secondly, that I could get rotary motion
+without the use of a crank. I effected both of these things very nicely.
+I changed the movement from a reciprocating to a rotary motion.
+
+"I got up steam one Saturday night. The president of the road and two or
+three other gentlemen were there. We got on the truck and went out two
+or three miles. All were delighted; for it opened new possibilities for
+the railroad. I put up the locomotive for the night in a shed, and
+invited the company to ride to Ellicott's Mills on Monday. Monday
+morning, what was my chagrin to find that some scamp had been there,
+and chopped off all the copper from the engine,--doubtless in order to
+sell it to some junk dealer!
+
+"It took me a week or more to repair the machine; then some one got in
+and broke a piece out of the wheel, in experimenting with it; and then
+two wheels, cast one after the other, were damaged by the carelessness
+of the turner. I was thoroughly disgusted and discouraged; but, being
+determined that I would not be balked entirely, I changed the engine so
+that the power could be applied through the ordinary connection with a
+crank.[5]
+
+"At last all was ready; and, on a Monday, we started,--six in the
+engine, and thirty-six on the car which I took in tow. We went up an
+average grade of eighteen feet to the mile; made the thirteen miles to
+Ellicott's Mills in one hour and twelve minutes; and came back in
+fifty-seven minutes. The result of that experiment was that the bonds
+of the railroad company were sold at once, and there was no longer any
+doubt as to the success of the road."
+
+The Tom Thumb continued for several weeks to make trips to Ellicott's
+Mills; and on one occasion (September 18, 1830) ran a race from Riley
+House into Baltimore (about nine miles) with a light car, drawn on a
+parallel track by a gray horse noted for speed and endurance. The
+contest was planned by the stagecoach proprietors of Baltimore, with the
+view of demonstrating that nothing could be gained by the substitution
+of steam for horse power on the railroad. The gray horse won the race,
+but not until after the Tom Thumb had passed him, and only by reason of
+a temporary breakdown of the machine, which caused a delay too great to
+be subsequently made up. Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection of the
+event, as given fifty-five years later, was that "they tried a little
+race one day, but it didn't amount to anything. It was rather funny; and
+the locomotive got out of gear."
+
+Mr. Latrobe says of the Tom Thumb:--
+
+"The machine was not larger than the hand cars used by workmen to
+transfer themselves from place to place; and as the speaker now recalls
+its appearance, the only wonder is that so apparently insignificant a
+contrivance should ever have been regarded as competent to the smallest
+results. But Mr. Cooper was wiser than many of the wisest around him.
+His engine could not have weighed a ton; but he saw in it a principle
+which the forty-ton engines of to-day have but served to develop and
+demonstrate. The boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine was not as large as the
+kitchen boiler attached to many a range in modern mansions. It was of
+about the same diameter, but not much more than half as high. It stood
+upright in the car, and was filled above the furnace, which occupied the
+lower section, with vertical tubes. The cylinder was but three and one
+half inches in diameter; and speed was got up by gearing. No natural
+draft could have been sufficient to get up steam in so small a boiler;
+and Mr. Cooper used, therefore, a blowing apparatus, driven by a drum,
+attached to one of the car wheels, over which passed a cord, that, in
+its turn, worked a pulley on the shaft of the blower. The contrivance
+for dispensing with a crank, though its general appearance is
+recollected, the speaker cannot describe with any accuracy; nor is it
+important,--it came to nothing. . . .
+
+"In a patent case, tried many years afterwards, the boiler of Mr.
+Cooper's engine became, in some connection which has been forgotten,
+important as a piece of evidence. It was hunted for, and found among
+some old rubbish at Mount Clare. It was difficult to imagine that it had
+even generated steam enough to drive a coffee mill, much less that it
+had performed the feats here narrated."
+
+After this experimental demonstration, the Tom Thumb retired into
+honorable but obscure repose in its maker's warehouse at New York, from
+which it emerged, fifty years later, to take part in the centennial
+celebration of the beginning of the commercial history of Baltimore
+(that place having been made a port of entry in 1780). According to a
+contemporary report of the festival, "in the vast procession, Mr. Cooper
+and his little Tom Thumb locomotive were the two most conspicuous
+objects, and received all the honors which could be paid by a quarter of
+a million of enthusiastic people."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] These and other statements in this chapter are taken from a lecture,
+delivered March 23, 1868, before the Maryland Institute, by Hon. J. H.
+B. Latrobe, giving his personal recollections of the early history of
+the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
+
+[4] Manuscript of his _Reminiscences_.
+
+[5] This was the sacrifice of a favorite invention to immediate
+practical considerations, which has been mentioned above as an instance
+of Mr. Cooper's common sense.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS
+
+
+PETER COOPER'S acquaintance with the affairs of New York city ranged
+from the time when, as a child, he was taken by his mother to see the
+last remaining fragments of the stockade erected by the early
+inhabitants for protection against the Indians, to the full metropolitan
+glory of the decade of his death. This wonderful municipal history is
+too commonly regarded from a special standpoint, as if it were but the
+record of a continually renewed and often unsuccessful struggle against
+corrupt and incompetent city government. Contests of this kind, under
+democratic institutions, always occupy more space in the press, and make
+more noise in public oratory, than the quiet but steady progress of
+commercial undertakings, and the labors of unselfish citizens for
+education, art, and social improvement, which go on beneath the
+turbulent surface. Americans have long suffered under the unjust
+imputation of peculiar devotion to "the almighty dollar." The fact is
+that in no other country do individuals give so much or do so much
+without pecuniary reward--whether for personal friendship or for public
+spirit--as in the United States. The munificence of private benefactions
+and endowments, far surpassing the government support given in other
+nations to similar institutions, furnish an abundant proof of the first
+half of this proposition; while the other half is proved by the
+innumerable boards, committees, and other organized bodies, to which
+active business men give time and thought without remuneration.
+
+This spirit has never been wholly missed in public affairs, even in the
+city of New York, so often charged with the lack of it. All the great
+features of its municipal progress, even those which have been, at some
+stage, tainted with lamentable corruption, have been originated or
+supported by unselfish public spirit. It might even be said that
+without this support, innocently given and deceitfully misused, the
+schemers for private gain could not have achieved their periodical and
+temporary successes.
+
+Peter Cooper was an illustrious example of good citizenship in this
+respect. First elected to public office as "assistant alderman," in
+1828, he turned his attention immediately upon the subject most
+important to the growth and welfare of a city, yet most likely to be
+neglected until it is forced upon the community as an unwelcome
+necessity,--namely, the water supply. Up to that time, New York had
+depended upon the springs of Manhattan Island, some of which supplied
+water, conveyed through the streets by means of wooden pipes (bored
+logs), while most of them were utilized by means of pumps only, to which
+the inhabitants sent for their supply.[6]
+
+Mr. Cooper induced the water committee, of which he had been appointed a
+member, to visit Philadelphia and inspect the works by which the water
+of the Schuylkill was raised to a high reservoir, and thence distributed
+in iron pipes throughout that city, and then to examine the Croton and
+Bronx rivers, for the purpose of ascertaining what these streams could
+supply. The season being dry, the rivers were so low that Mr. Cooper was
+not satisfied of their capacity to furnish the needed quantity; so he
+investigated further, on his own account, the watershed (then a
+wilderness) of the Hackensack River in New Jersey, and subsequently
+submitted to the board of aldermen plans and models, illustrating a
+scheme for the supply of water to New York from that region, by means of
+pipes laid under the North River.
+
+To the end of his life, Mr. Cooper adhered to his preference for this
+method of conveying water across river channels, as compared with
+elevated aqueducts, like the "high bridge" subsequently constructed
+across the Harlem River. And in this particular, his intuitive
+engineer's judgment was not at fault, although the classic example of
+the Romans, who spent untold labor and time in building aqueducts, where
+buried conduits would have been both cheaper and better, still dominated
+the professional world. But Peter Cooper furnished another example of
+his practical wisdom, by sacrificing his superior theory for the sake of
+the useful result contemplated. Thorough study showed that, although the
+Croton region could not be relied upon at all times for an immediately
+adequate water supply, yet its average through the year was sufficient
+for the purpose, so that the creation, by means of higher dams, of
+large storage reservoirs, would solve the pressing problem. This plan
+was ultimately adopted, and has been pursued with suitable enlargements,
+ever since. Peter Cooper was made chairman of the water committee,--a
+position which he retained until some years after the Croton system was
+completed.
+
+In the procurement of iron pipes for the system of distribution, and
+their proper testing before acceptance, his integrity and intelligence
+were specially effective in protecting the interests of the city, by
+securing the best material at the lowest cost. While Mr. Cooper was a
+strong "protectionist," favoring the encouragement of American
+industries, he never recognized any distinctions among Americans. In his
+patriotic thought, the unit to be regarded was not the city or the State
+of New York, but the United States of America; and he earnestly opposed
+the contention of the New York iron founders, that contracts for the
+pipe of the Croton system ought not to be made with inhabitants of
+another State. His arguments prevailed; and the pipe was ordered from a
+Philadelphia manufacturer, who offered a better article at a lower
+price.
+
+During Mr. Cooper's official service, and not without his active aid and
+advice (though his personal attention was mainly given to the water
+department), the beginnings of an organized police and fire service were
+established. When he was first elected to office the city was guarded by
+watchmen, who served four hours every night for seventy-five cents.
+Every householder was expected to have leathern buckets in his hall, and
+in case of an alarm of fire to throw them into the street, so that the
+citizens voluntarily running to the rescue could form a line to the
+nearest pump, and, passing the water by means of the buckets, supply the
+tank of the small hand-engine, which then squirted it upon the burning
+building. It is needless to detail here the steps by which out of this
+crude beginning the present effective New York Fire Department has been
+perfected. Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was promoted,
+and its future importance was foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his
+public-spirited colleagues.
+
+But a still more profoundly important element of municipal and national
+progress, in which the participation of Peter Cooper was active and
+influential, was the free public school system in New York. This system
+was originally planted by the great mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton,
+to whom the State is indebted for the Erie Canal, and for many other
+plans and impulses scarcely less significant. While Clinton was an
+advocate of universal suffrage, he perceived the danger of granting this
+power to an ignorant and largely foreign population; and in 1805 he
+secured a charter for "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the
+City of New York for the Education of Such Poor Children as do not
+Belong to, or are not Provided for by, Any Religious Society."
+
+The appeal of this society to "the affluent and charitable of every
+denomination of Christians" was liberally answered, and by December,
+1809, a school capable of accommodating five hundred children had been
+erected upon a purchased site. This was the beginning in New York city
+of the free school system, over which for twenty-five years De Witt
+Clinton presided. During that period the schools, supported by generous
+private contributions, and also after a while by a state tax, steadily
+increased in number, efficiency, and public favor. Peter Cooper had been
+always a zealous supporter of these schools, but not until 1838 did he
+become--by election as a trustee of the Free School Society--officially
+connected with them. It was a critical period in their history. The
+original national debt of the Union had been recently extinguished, and
+a considerable surplus had been returned to the contributing States, of
+which New York devoted its share to educational purposes, thus largely
+increasing the fund for the city. In 1822, sixteen years before, the
+common council had made the free schools "unsectarian," excluding from
+the benefits of the fund all institutions of denominational character.
+The various sects had submitted reluctantly to this decision so long as
+the fund was too small to be divided among them; but its sudden
+enlargement encouraged an attempt to secure appropriations for parochial
+schools.
+
+In his first annual message Governor Seward recommended to the
+legislature the establishment of schools in which the children of
+foreigners might be "instructed by teachers speaking the same language
+with themselves and professing the same faith." The Roman Catholic
+community, acting at once upon this suggestion, sent a deputation to the
+New York common council demanding for their schools "a pro rata share"
+of the educational fund, to which as taxpayers they contributed.
+
+In the resistance made to this claim by the Free School Society Mr.
+Cooper took a prominent and ardent part. The advocates of unsectarian
+public schools were victorious; but the controversy continued to agitate
+the State until the passage by the legislature in 1842 of an act
+establishing in New York city a new board of education to control the
+schools supported from the funds of the State, and at the same time
+forbidding the support from this fund of schools in which "any religious
+sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced."
+The Free School Society, resenting and distrusting this new (and in some
+respects complicated) arrangement, continued its separate activity for
+eleven years; but in 1853, the unsectarian character of the public
+schools of New York having been established beyond question, the society
+and the board of education were by common consent amalgamated by
+statute. At the final meeting of the society Peter Cooper delivered the
+valedictory address, the language of which indicates that not without
+apprehension did he contemplate the surrender of the public schools to
+the exclusive control of a body of officials likely to be more or less
+influenced by partisan or political considerations.
+
+Yet his characteristic common sense came again in this instance to the
+front. The moral which he drew from his doubts and fears was that "the
+stewardship we are about to resign is not a reprieve from the
+responsibilities of the future." And in obedience to this conviction he
+accepted, with fourteen of his old colleagues, membership in the board
+of education, of which he served for two years as vice-president,
+resigning in January, 1855, at which time he had formed and begun to
+carry out the great plan of an institution for free popular education
+with which his name is now forever associated.
+
+Many years later Mr. Cooper became the president of the Citizens'
+Association of New York, which he supported with untiring enthusiasm and
+lavish expenditure, and which in its day did good work in securing for
+the city an efficient fire department, boards of health, docks, and
+education, and an improved charter. Mr. Cooper retired in 1873, and the
+association died soon after, to be revived in other organizations, which
+have from time to time continued the perennial battle for good
+government in New York begun by him.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] A curious survival of this state of things is the Manhattan Company,
+which secured from the legislature a perpetual charter, so skillfully
+framed (by Aaron Burr) that, although it grants much more extensive
+powers than could now be obtained by a corporation, it cannot be
+successfully assailed so long as the fundamental condition is
+fulfilled,--namely, that the company shall be prepared to furnish water
+at all times, on demand. It is said that, in compliance with this
+requirement, a small steam pump is kept continually running, in
+connection with a short system of pipes, somewhere near the City Hall,
+and that the company stands ready to furnish water to any
+applicant--only, the charter does not fix the price which it may exact!
+So far as I know, the only use now made of the extensive powers granted
+by this famous charter is the maintenance of the Manhattan Bank. A few
+years ago, excavations in lower Broadway brought to light bored logs,
+which were supposed to be relics of the old "Manhattan" system.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART
+
+
+IN many respects the industrial conditions under which Peter Cooper
+began his career had been revolutionized before he finished it. The
+apprentice system has well-nigh passed away; and the old freedom with
+which an intelligent, industrious, and ambitious young man could turn
+from one occupation to another, seeking that road which offered greatest
+promise of preferment, is greatly hampered by the modern regime of
+"organized labor," which, whatever its advantages, presents its own
+peculiar perils for the workingman. But it remains forever true that
+under either of these systems, or any others that can be evolved or
+invented, knowledge is power, and the bestowal of it is the one gift
+which neither pauperizes the recipient nor injures the community.
+
+As a struggling young apprentice, Peter Cooper regarded with intense
+sympathy the needs and limitations of the class to which he belonged.
+But his notion of a remedy was not that of paternal legislation, or
+belligerent organization, or social reconstruction. To his conception
+the atmosphere of personal liberty and responsibility furnished by the
+new democratic republic, offering free scope to individual endeavor and
+rewarding individual merit, was the best that could be asked.
+
+What he dreamed of doing was simply to assist these social conditions by
+providing for those who were handicapped by circumstances the means of
+power and opportunity, to be utilized by their own assiduity. This plan
+included not only what he then thought to be the most effective system
+for intellectual improvement, but also provision for such innocent
+entertainment as would supersede the grosser forms of recreation, which
+involved the waste of money and health.
+
+Walking up the Bowery Road--then the stage route to Boston, but now a
+crowded down-town street--he selected in the suburbs of the city the
+site for his great institution; and, as he accumulated the necessary
+funds, he bought at intervals lot after lot at the intersection of Third
+and Fourth Avenues, until he had acquired the entire block, paying for
+his latest purchases (made after the neighborhood had been solidly built
+up and had become a centre of business) very high prices compared with
+those he had paid at the beginning. At last (in 1854) he commenced the
+erection of a six-story fire-proof building of stone, brick, and iron.
+This work occupied several years, and during its progress a period of
+great financial distress threatened to interrupt it. But he persisted in
+the undertaking, at great risk to his private business; and the building
+was finished at a cost (including that of the land) of more than six
+hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper,
+together with the legacy provided by his will, and doubled by his heirs,
+and still later donations from his family and immediate relatives, make
+up a total of more than double that amount.[7]
+
+Up to the time when the building was completed Mr. Cooper had taken
+little advice as to the details of his project. Its outlines in his mind
+were those which he had conceived a quarter-century before, and though
+he was doubtless conscious that new social and industrial conditions had
+intervened which would require some modifications of his plan, he had
+not formulated such changes.
+
+The classes which he wished especially to reach were those who, being
+already engaged in earning a living by labor, could scarcely be expected
+to take regular courses in instruction; and the idea of such instruction
+appears to have been at the beginning subordinate in his mind. He had a
+strong impression that young mechanics and apprentices, instead of
+wasting their time in dissipation, should improve their minds during the
+intervals of labor; and not unnaturally his first thought as to the
+means of such improvement turned to those things which had aroused and
+stimulated his own mind. Probably he did not realize that the mass of
+men were not like himself, and that something more than mere suggestion
+or opportunity would be required to develop the mental powers and
+enlarge the knowledge of the average workingman. However that may be,
+the original vague design of Mr. Cooper was something like this:--
+
+There was in the city of New York a famous collection of curiosities
+known as Scudder's Museum. Barnum's Museum afterwards took its place;
+but that, too, has long since disappeared; and the small so-called
+museums now scattered through the city but faintly remind old
+inhabitants of the glories of Scudder's or Barnum's in their prime.
+These establishments contained all sorts of curiosities, arranged
+without much reference to scientific use,--wax-works, historical relics,
+dwarfs, giants, living and stuffed animals, etc. There was also a
+lecture-room, devoted principally to moral melodrama; and on an upper
+floor a large room was occupied by the cosmorama,--an exhibition of
+pictures, usually of noteworthy scenery, foreign cities, etc., which
+were looked at through round holes, enhancing the effect of their
+illumination.
+
+Peter Cooper doubtless often lingered in these museums, receiving the
+inspiration which came from visions of a world much wider than his
+individual horizon, from the curious and wonderful works of nature, and
+from the works of man in former times and in foreign lands. From the
+queer mechanical devices exhibited by inventors to the "Happy Family"
+and the cosmorama, everything was full to his quick sympathy of
+intellectual, moral, or sentimental suggestion; and no doubt he felt,
+after an hour of such combined wonder and reflection, a satisfying sense
+of time well spent.
+
+He wished that this means of mental improvement and recreation combined
+might be freely afforded to those whose scanty earnings would not permit
+them otherwise to make frequent use of it, and he resolved that the
+museum and the cosmorama should be included in his institution.
+
+Another agency of which Mr. Cooper had made fruitful use, and the
+efficacy of which he highly appreciated, was conversation and debate. If
+people could be brought together and made to talk he thought they would
+learn a great deal from each other. In this he had undoubtedly grasped
+one of the great principles of progress. To meet and interchange our
+ideas of books and by personal discussions is indeed the mightiest
+factor of modern improvement. But the mere meeting to talk _about_
+things unless it is combined with the disposition and the apparatus for
+_studying_ things is but barter without production, and may degenerate
+to a barren exchange of words, as unprofitable as that described in the
+Yankee proverb, "swapping jackknives in a garret." This aspect of the
+truth Mr. Cooper doubtless came to appreciate; but at the outset,
+habituated as he was to get ideas from everybody he met and everything
+he saw, it seemed to him that free discussions would be an unmixed
+benefit to all, and he resolved that his institution should contain
+rooms, devoted to the several handicrafts, where the practitioners of
+each could meet and "exchange views."
+
+It was also his intention that the lower part of the building he erected
+should be occupied by stores and offices, the annual rent of which
+should pay the running expenses of the institution. In the course of
+time the Cooper Union came to need for full efficiency both more money
+than this source would supply and more room than was left to it after
+subtracting the rooms thus rented. These needs have now been met in some
+measure by further endowments, so that before long the whole building
+will be devoted to educational uses. But the wisdom, at that time, of
+Mr. Cooper's plan has been vindicated by the great work done with the
+modest means thus provided.
+
+The building of the Cooper Union represented his original ideas. Above
+the shops and offices to be rented was an immense room intended for the
+museum. A large part of the building was cut up into small meeting-rooms
+for the conferences of the trades; in an upper story another great room
+was provided for the cosmorama; and the flat roof was to be safely
+inclosed with a balustrade, so that on pleasant days or evenings the
+frequenters of the institution might sit or promenade there, partake of
+harmless refreshments, listen to agreeable music,[8] and enjoy the
+magnificent prospect of the city below,--the heights beyond the East
+River on one side, the Hudson on the other, and the magnificent
+island-studded harbor.
+
+A noteworthy feature of this scheme was the complete obliteration of all
+distinctions of class, creed, race, or sex among its beneficiaries. It
+is a significant fact that through nearly half a century, while these
+distinctions have been the subjects of vehement and sometimes bitter
+social and political discussion, the Cooper Union has gone quietly on
+educating its thousands of pupils without the least embarrassment in its
+discipline, and apparently without even the consciousness on the part of
+its founder or its trustees that in this perfect solution of what was
+supposed to be a difficult problem they had accomplished anything
+extraordinary.
+
+When Mr. Cooper, consulting with wise and practical advisers, addressed
+himself at last to the final arrangement of details, he surrendered one
+after another many parts of his youthful design. The name, "The Cooper
+Union for the Advancement of Science and Art," epitomized this change.
+His primary purpose was unchanged; but he perceived that systematic
+education would be of more value to the class he sought to aid than mere
+amusement or miscellaneous talk. The great free reading-room of the
+Cooper Union was substituted for the museum; the conversation parlors
+for the various trades became class-rooms for instruction; the cosmorama
+yielded to lecture-halls and laboratories; and the roof was abandoned to
+the weather. To all these changes, and to many other novelties adopted
+afterwards, Mr. Cooper was reconciled by one conclusive argument;
+namely, the proof afforded by their results that the Cooper Union was
+giving to the working classes that which they needed most and most
+desired. Now and then perhaps a sigh might escape him for the dream of
+his youth. I remember one occasion when I accompanied him to the roof of
+the building, where some new construction was going on which he wished
+to inspect. The old man stood for some time admiring the view in all
+directions, and at last, recalling how he had once imagined happy crowds
+enjoying the delights of that "roof-garden," and casting a mournful
+glance at the central spot where the band was to have been, he said,
+"Sometimes I think my first plan was the best!"[9] But such regrets did
+not occupy his mind. He was satisfied to know that the institution he
+had founded, building better than he knew, had proved its fitness by its
+success in the eager and grateful use made of it by those for whose
+benefit it was intended and in the actual evidences of such benefit.
+Every year managers of the different departments took pains to report to
+him instances in which students already earning wages had increased
+their earnings through the added knowledge or skill acquired in the
+evening classes; and this was the feature of the annual statements upon
+which he dwelt with the greatest satisfaction.
+
+The charter of the Cooper Union was finally adopted in its present form
+by the legislature of the State of New York, April 13, 1859; and the
+deed of trust, executed in compliance therewith, on the 29th day of the
+same month, by Peter Cooper and his wife, Sarah, conveyed to the board
+of trustees the title to "all that piece and parcel of land bounded on
+the west by Fourth Avenue, on the north by Astor Place, on the east by
+Third Avenue, and on the south by Seventh Street, . . . to be forever
+devoted to the advancement of science and art, in their application to
+the varied and useful purposes of life."
+
+Even through this dry legal phraseology, it is not difficult to discern
+the frank and simple joy of the patient enthusiast, who was at last able
+to speak of the land which he had laboriously acquired, lot by lot,
+through many years, and the building which he had raised, stone by
+stone, through many more, as _one_ "piece or parcel," his to dedicate
+forever.
+
+The delivery of this deed to the board of trustees was accompanied with
+a long letter, setting forth the wishes, hopes, and plans of the
+grantor, in the formal and diffuse rhetoric peculiar to his generation,
+and, perhaps, too much contemned by ours. To say the least, we are no
+more warranted in despising the utterances of noble, self-sacrificing
+philanthropists, because they are clothed in phrases now deemed verbose
+and stilted, than we would be in disparaging the deeds of historic
+heroes, because they wore armor now antiquated and struck their doughty
+blows with weapons obsolete. When Peter Cooper wrote, in the letter now
+before me, "The great object I desire to accomplish by the establishment
+of an institution devoted to the advancement of science and art is to
+open the volume of nature by the light of truth--so unveiling the laws
+and methods of Deity that the young may see the beauties of creation,
+enjoy its blessings, and learn to love the Being 'from whom cometh every
+good and perfect gift,'"--he was not guilty of cant, because cant is the
+use of language expressing an emotion which the user does not really
+feel. And the same may be said of the elaborate additional exposition,
+contained in this letter, of the writer's faith in God and man, and of
+his confident hope in the future of his race, and particularly of his
+country.
+
+The letter shows some traces still of his original plan. Thus, he
+writes:--
+
+"In order most effectually to aid and encourage the efforts of youth to
+obtain useful knowledge, I have provided the main floor of the large
+hall on the third story for a reading-room, literary exchange, and
+scientific collections--the walls around that floor to be arranged for
+the reception of books, maps, paintings, and other objects of interest.
+And when a sufficient collection of the works of art, science, and
+nature can be obtained, I propose that glass cases shall be arranged
+around the walls of the gallery of the said room, forming alcoves around
+the entire floor for the preservation of the same. In the window spaces
+I propose to arrange such cosmoramic and other views as will exhibit in
+the clearest and most forcible light the true philosophy of life."
+
+Other characteristic paragraphs are here quoted,--the whole letter being
+too long for full republication.
+
+"To manifest the deep interest and sympathy I feel in all that can
+advance the happiness and better the condition of the female portion of
+the community, and especially of those who are dependent on honest labor
+for support, I desire the trustees to appropriate two hundred and fifty
+dollars yearly to assist such pupils of the female school of design as
+shall, in their careful judgment, by their efforts and sacrifices in the
+performance of duty to parents or to those that Providence has made
+dependent on them for support, merit and require such aid. My reason for
+this requirement is not so much to reward as to encourage the exercise
+of heroic virtues that often shine in the midst of the greatest
+suffering and obscurity without so much as being noticed by the passing
+throng.
+
+"In order to better the condition of women and to widen the sphere of
+female employment, I have provided seven rooms to be forever devoted to
+a female school of design, and I desire the trustees to appropriate out
+of the rents of the building fifteen hundred dollars annually towards
+meeting the expenses of said school.
+
+"It is the ardent wish of my heart that this school of design may be the
+means of raising to competence and comfort thousands of those that might
+otherwise struggle through a life of poverty and suffering. . . .
+
+"Desiring, as I do, to use every means to render this institution useful
+through all coming time, and believing that editors of the public press
+have it in their power to exert a greater influence on the community for
+good than any other class of men of equal number, it is therefore my
+sincere desire that editors be earnestly invited to become members of
+the society of arts to be connected with this institution. . . .
+
+"It is my desire, also, that the students shall have the use of one of
+the large rooms (to be assigned by the trustees) for the purpose of
+useful debates. I desire and deem it best to direct that all these
+lectures and debates shall be exclusive of theological and party
+questions, and shall have for their constant object the causes that
+operate around and within us, and the means necessary and most
+appropriate to remove the physical and moral evils that afflict our
+city, our country, and humanity." . . .
+
+Other paragraphs indicate his plan that the students shall, in the first
+instance, frame the rules which shall control the discipline of the
+institution. Thus he says:--
+
+"It is my desire, and I hereby ordain, that a strict conformity to rules
+deliberately formed by a vote of the majority of the students, and
+approved by the trustees, shall forever be an indispensable requisite
+for continuing to enjoy the benefits of this institution. I now most
+earnestly entreat each and every one of the students of this
+institution, through all coming time, to whom I have intrusted this
+great responsibility of framing laws for the regulation of their conduct
+in their connection with the institution, and by which any of the
+members may lose its privileges, to remember how frail we are, and how
+liable to err when we come to sit in judgment on the faults of others,
+and how much the circumstances of our birth, our education, and the
+society and country where we have been born and brought up, have had to
+do in forming us and making us what we are."
+
+In this scheme Mr. Cooper anticipated the plan of self-government now
+followed in some of our colleges; and while he expected too much of the
+students of the Cooper Union, and was himself afterwards obliged to
+consent to the restriction of their autonomy, it may be fairly said that
+the spirit of his hope and exhortation has never ceased to be felt; and,
+to the great honor of the Cooper Union, it may be recorded that
+questions of discipline have been well-nigh unknown within its walls.
+
+This noble trust was accepted by a body of men who have discharged it
+with unwearied fidelity, zeal and wisdom. The original board consisted
+of Mr. Cooper, his son Edward Cooper, his son-in-law Abram S. Hewitt,
+and John E. Parsons, Wilson G. Hunt, and Daniel F. Tiemann. Three of
+these, Messrs. Cooper, Hewitt, and Tiemann, have been mayors of the city
+of New York. All of them were well-known and eminent citizens, burdened
+with the duties of active business; and the time they gave so freely to
+the management of the Cooper Union was not the superfluity of leisure.
+The difficulty with "business men" too often is, that, when nominally
+charged with the administration of organized charities, they slight the
+work because they have not time to attend to it. But the United States
+can show not a few instances in which the affairs of religious,
+educational, or benevolent institutions are carefully managed by the
+active directors of great private enterprises; and their management,
+when it is thus thorough, is generally much better than that of literary
+or philanthropic amateurs. This is conspicuously shown in the history of
+the Cooper Union.[10]
+
+This is not the place for a detailed account of the development of the
+Cooper Union, or even of its present scope and prospective operations.
+Such an account would worthily occupy a separate volume; for the
+institution, in the hands of its wise directors, was a pioneer and model
+in many respects in which later enterprises, with larger means, have,
+perhaps, surpassed it. I must content myself here with brief mention of
+a few particulars.
+
+The immense free reading-room, with its average daily attendance of
+nearly 1500 to 2000 persons, was Mr. Cooper's special delight; and well
+it might be so; for the sight is one almost without a parallel--not in
+the architecture, size, or furnishing of the place, but in the extent
+and constancy of its use by the public. Entrance is free to all who are
+not unclean, intoxicated, or disorderly. In the main, the privileges
+thus given are not abused, but occasionally the evils almost inseparable
+from so large an attendance have been felt. At one time, the curator
+earnestly represented to the trustees the necessity of doing something
+to check the mutilation of books--a practice which public librarians
+know well as one of their most troublesome foes. It appeared that some
+unknown persons, who combined a love of the beautiful in language with a
+barbaric ignorance of it in conduct, were accustomed to slash out with
+their penknives favorite passages of poetry for preservation, treating
+in this matter newspapers and books alike. It was found difficult to
+keep whole the volumes of Tennyson and Longfellow. But a more frequent
+and injurious practice was the cutting out of plates from illustrated
+books. This was not for love of art, as the other for love of poetry.
+The object was to sell such engravings for two or three cents each to
+the print-shops in the city, where they were bought by refined amateurs,
+for the purpose of "illustrating" special volumes. This fashionable
+hobby has been the indirect cause of the ruin of many a choice book; and
+buyers of fine old editions are well aware that they must look well to
+their bargains, lest they find that the thief, at the bidding of the
+"collector," has plundered the volumes of the plates which once adorned
+them.
+
+When this subject came up for discussion in the board of trustees, Mr.
+Cooper was so full of pity for the poor fellows, who were obliged to
+sell stolen engravings at two cents a piece to keep body and soul
+together, that he could scarcely be brought to take a severe view of the
+offense. Nor was he willing (and in this his fellow-trustees agreed with
+him) to impose any restriction or censorship upon admittance to the
+reading-room. Even if the books suffered, the room must continue to be
+free. The great mass of well-behaved people must not be annoyed by
+measures intended to exclude a few rogues. The result vindicated the
+sagacity, as well as the charity, of this view. The officers in charge,
+not being permitted to adopt any sweeping measures of prevention, simply
+redoubled their vigilance, and finally caught one or two offenders and
+"made examples of them;" and the nuisance was immediately abated, though
+perhaps not entirely and permanently abolished.
+
+The report of 1900, after mentioning the great (legitimate) wear and
+tear of the books, of which 12,000 had to be re-bound, adds:--
+
+"The decorum of the visitors has been excellent, and it is remarkable,
+in view of such a very large number of persons visiting the room, that
+so few mutilations and injuries occur to the periodicals and books, and
+that so few books, probably not more than half a dozen in the course of
+a year, and those of small consequence, are stolen."
+
+It seems then, after all, that Peter Cooper's faith in the people was
+justified.
+
+The great hall in the basement is another noteworthy feature, and worthy
+of wider imitation than it has yet received. Such a hall, if located
+upstairs in such a building, would have been open to three objections:
+it would have monopolized, for occasional use only, space which was
+required for constant use; it would have been intolerably noisy, by
+reason of the roar and rattle in the streets which surround the building
+on all sides; and it would have been dangerous, as all such places are,
+when great audiences must make their exit by going down stairs. Nothing
+has ever been invented that will prevent people from being crushed and
+trampled when they are crowding down a stairway. In all these respects,
+the great hall of the Cooper Union is admirable. It occupies space not
+otherwise valuable. It is quiet, and acoustically perfect. The means of
+exit and entrance are ample and safe. Even in case of an unreasoning
+panic, there is little danger that a crowd, tumbling up the stone
+stairways to the street, would cause the horrible maiming and killing
+which so often attend the efforts of a frightened multitude to get down.
+Finally, the ventilation is excellent, for the simple reason that
+natural or automatic ventilation of such a large, low basement room
+could not be expected, and consequently mechanical ventilation by means
+of a large fan, run by steam power, was provided. The efficiency of this
+system has sometimes been severely tested. On one occasion, during a
+scientific lecture, the experimental illustrations of which were on a
+large and imposing scale, the learned professor on the platform had the
+misfortune to crack an immense glass jar, in which he was exhibiting the
+brilliant combustion of phosphorus in oxygen gas. The white fumes of
+phosphorous acid floated out into the air, and began to diffuse
+themselves through the hall towards the ventilation outlets at the sides
+and rear. To one who knew the irritating nature of these fumes it seemed
+inevitable that the hall must be emptied of its crowded audience in a
+few minutes. Already coughing had begun on the front seats, when Mr.
+Hewitt, who was seated on the platform, quickly rose, and pulling a
+cord, reversed the currents of ventilation and opened a new outlet into
+the street, behind and above the platform. The curling clouds of vapor
+paused, wheeled, and retreated, and in another minute the air was
+perfectly pure. The lecturer had not even been interrupted. It was a
+beautiful and timely "experiment" not on the programme, and, to use the
+words of one who was present, "It was just the sort of thing to please
+Peter Cooper to the bottom of his soul."
+
+The great hall was dedicated from the beginning to free speech. Peter
+Cooper may have overestimated the value of mere talk. As I have already
+told, it was his first notion that conversation and discussion were the
+chief things required in education. He came to see that study,
+instruction, and training were equally essential, but he never
+surrendered his faith in free speech; and the great hall was at the
+service of all sects, parties, and classes, religious, philosophical,
+political, scientific, literary, or philanthropic. It has been the scene
+of many memorable meetings and addresses. But nothing in its history has
+been more useful and noteworthy than the series of free popular lectures
+which were given, as part of the operations of the Cooper Union, within
+its walls. These lectures began in 1868, and continued until they were
+adopted by the city as part of the general scheme of free lectures which
+has been so successful during the last few years. In awarding due praise
+to the promoters and managers of this plan, it should not be forgotten
+that the Cooper Union inaugurated it, and maintained it for many years,
+during which the free Saturday night popular lectures in its great hall
+were the only ones of their kind. They covered many sciences and arts,
+chronicles of travel and themes of history and literature. The most
+eminent authors, teachers, investigators, travelers, and orators of the
+generation were comprised in the list of lecturers; and many of them
+performed this service without other reward than the consciousness of
+contributing to a noble charity, and the evident gratitude of the vast
+and eagerly attentive audience.
+
+Mr. Cooper loved to attend these Saturday evening lectures, and an
+arm-chair was always ready for him on the platform. Many a speaker on
+that platform has been surprised by an untimely outburst of applause and
+has turned to discover the cause in the entrance of the beloved founder.
+Often the subject of the evening was beyond his experience or knowledge,
+but that made no difference in his respectful attention, or in the
+benign satisfaction with which he contemplated the attentive audience,
+and realized that they were receiving benefit. I have often felt that
+the scene exhibited almost every Saturday night for many years during
+the latest period of his life could be equaled only by the spectacle
+presented at Ephesus, where the aged St. John the Divine fronted the
+congregation of loving believers, always with his one last message,
+"Little children, love one another."
+
+But sometimes the old man would be intensely interested and aroused by
+the lecture. I remember such an occasion, when I was myself the
+lecturer, and had been laying down, with due scientific decorum and
+diagrams, the "law of storms." At the close of the lecture, Mr. Cooper
+arose, advanced to the front, and gave a vivid and animated description
+of a whirlwind which he had witnessed some seventy years before, which
+was received with rapt attention and tremendous applause. The lecture
+was undoubtedly eclipsed in interest by this unexpected after-piece; but
+the lecturer was amply compensated by his triumph in having thus
+stirred the spirit and aroused the recollections of the dear old
+founder.
+
+With regard to the various schools and classes of the Cooper Union, it
+must suffice to say briefly that under the elastic and comprehensive
+plan of the deed of trust, two objects were constantly kept in view by
+the trustees. In the first place, a complete four years' course was
+always maintained, for the benefit of those who could afford the time
+and who felt the need of such training. In the second place, classes
+were instituted in such special departments as were most likely to be
+useful and most evidently in demand; and with regard to these the demand
+and the evidence of usefulness were followed as guides in determining
+the extent of the facilities offered, up to the capacity and means of
+the institution.
+
+De Morgan, in his "Budget of Paradoxes," tells of an old fellow who,
+wishing to have a chair that would fit him perfectly, sat for a while on
+a mass of shoemaker's wax, which he then carried to a worker in wood,
+and instructed him to "make a seat like that!" This homely illustration
+indicates the manner in which the special classes of the Cooper Union
+have been established, enlarged, and regulated, to meet the evident
+demands of its constituency. It is pleasant to know that the future
+means and sphere of the institution will be enlarged under the same wise
+management.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] Not all of this amount is represented in permanent endowments, since
+large contributions to cover deficits in annual income as compared with
+current expenses, or for special repairs and alterations, do not appear
+under that head. According to the balance-sheet of January 1, 1900, the
+total assets consist of $1,075,428.62, the appraised value of the
+building, furniture, and apparatus; and $947,021.39 in cash on hand or
+investments,--making a total of $2,022,450.01. Of the invested sum
+$953,159.30 is in "special endowments," of which the income only can be
+expended. This fund comprises $200,000 from Peter Cooper and $340,000
+from the family of the late William Cooper, his brother; the remainder
+is made up of smaller gifts (the chief of which are a bequest of $30,000
+from Wilson G. Hunt, one of the original trustees, and $10,000 each from
+Mary Stuart, J. Pierpont Morgan, Morris K. Jesup, and John E. Parsons),
+and one of $300,000 made in December, 1899, by Andrew Carnegie. In
+addition to the aggregate thus made up Hon. Edward Cooper, the son, and
+Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the son-in-law of Peter Cooper, have undertaken to
+furnish a further income of $10,000 per annum; and finally, according to
+the 41st Annual Report of the Trustees (May, 1900), the Cooper Union, as
+residuary legatee under the will of the late John Holstead, will
+ultimately receive between $200,000 and $300,000.
+
+These recent additions to the endowment of the institution will enable
+the trustees to enlarge its usefulness in many ways, and especially
+(being no longer dependent for annual income upon rents) to utilize the
+whole of the building for educational purposes. Yet the total endowment
+will still be modest, as compared with that of many similar institutions
+of later origin.
+
+[8] Old New Yorkers will be reminded of the closing lines of Fitz-Greene
+Halleck's poem,--
+
+          "And there is music twice a week
+           On Scudder's balcony."
+
+[9] There may have been more than a mere sentimental regret in his mind
+at that time; for his inventive intuition had struck out half a century
+before an idea to which the slow thought of his fellows had not yet
+attained,--the plan of utilizing roofs for the purpose of giving to all
+classes an ownership of free air and far distance and boundless sky as
+complete as any landowner could command by fencing off a mountain for
+his own pleasure. As he looked down upon the vast wilderness of roofs
+and thought of the multitude laboring beneath them or trudging through
+the streets ("up one ca�on and down another," as old Jim Bridger the
+scout said in St. Louis), ignorant of the upper sphere within reach, he
+might well have felt that one part of his original scheme would still be
+a physical and moral boon to the metropolis. In fact the disappearance
+of the "vacant lots," so numerous in his youth, and so freely available
+as informal parks and playgrounds, had created new necessity for air and
+space. Whether he consciously recalled the hanging gardens of Babylon,
+or the flat roofs universally utilized for social and domestic purposes
+in eastern and southern countries, I do not know. At all events he had
+seized upon a similar idea, and now--nearly a score of years after his
+death--we are waking up to its value. Even the Cooper Union building
+some day, after more pressing needs of equipment shall have been
+satisfied, may be crowned with its garden of rest and outlook.
+
+[10] Of the original board, Peter Cooper was the first to pass away. Mr.
+Hunt and Mr. Tiemann have since died, and Mr. R. Fulton Cutting has been
+elected a trustee. The other vacancies have not been filled.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+NATIONAL POLITICS
+
+
+PETER COOPER'S prominent activity in national politics belongs to two
+periods,--that of the war for the Union, and that of the subsequent
+controversies over questions of financial policy.
+
+As has been explained, he felt his life to be peculiarly identified with
+that of the nation born with him; and the idea that this nation should
+be destroyed in the midst of its triumphant progress was profoundly
+abhorrent to him. Like many other patriots, he was ready to save the
+Union by a compromise, if that were practicable. He advocated the
+purchase and liberation by the government of all the slaves in the
+United States; he promoted a "peace conference" on the very eve of the
+war. But when South Carolina had formally seceded and the gauntlet had
+been cast at the feet of national authority, his course was not
+uncertain. He was a representative of the New York Chamber of Commerce
+in the deputation of thirty leading citizens of New York which visited
+Washington in order to discover what plan Mr. Buchanan (then still
+President) had in view. They got no satisfaction from the President, but
+assured themselves of the firm loyalty of Mr. Seward, then Senator from
+New York.
+
+A few weeks later the bombardment of Fort Sumter put an end to all
+projects of compromise. At the memorable mass meeting held in Union
+Square, New York, shortly after the receipt of this news, Peter Cooper,
+then seventy years old, was among the first to mount the platform. His
+familiar white hairs and kindly face were recognized by the crowd, which
+vociferously called for a speech from him. Stepping to the front, he
+uttered a few ringing sentences which sounded the keynote of the
+meeting. I quote but one or two:--
+
+"We are contending with an enemy not only determined on our destruction
+as a nation, but to build on our ruins a government devoted with all its
+power to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting
+to all the best feelings of humanity,--an institution that enables
+thousands to sell their own children into hopeless bondage.
+
+"Shall it succeed? You say 'No!' and I unite with you in your decision.
+We cannot allow it to succeed. We should spend our lives, our property,
+and leave the land itself a desolation before such an institution should
+triumph over the free people of this country. . . .
+
+"Let us, therefore, unite to sustain the government by every means in
+our power, to arm and equip in the shortest possible time an army of the
+best men that can be found in the country."
+
+From that day on his patriotism never doubted or faltered. When the war
+loan was announced he was the first man at the door of the subtreasury
+in New York waiting to make payment over the counter of all the money
+he had been able to collect without business disaster. "In those days,"
+says a friend, "whenever he had nothing else to do, he would go down to
+the recruiting office and put in a substitute." It is estimated that he
+must have sent, first and last, about a score of soldiers to serve for
+him under the flag.
+
+From the first he urged the emancipation and enlistment of the Southern
+negroes,--a policy which was ultimately adopted with successful results;
+and when in 1864, at the darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger
+of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted that great mass meeting in
+the hall of the Cooper Union which marked the turning-point of the
+struggle, carried the State of New York for Lincoln, and secured the
+triumph of the Union.
+
+After the war was over he presided at another meeting, called to favor
+aid to the disabled soldiers of the nation; and the following paragraph
+quoted from his remarks on that occasion forms a fitting close to this
+brief notice of his patriotic activity:--
+
+"If we required a stronger stimulus to urge us to perform our duty, we
+have only to turn our thoughts back to that fearful day when the armies
+of rebellion had entered Pennsylvania with the intent to subjugate the
+North to their domination. Had they been successful, they would have
+gloried in making us pay for the loss of their slaves and the expenses
+of their war. I trust that the government will not hesitate to tax my
+property and the property of every other man enough to provide for the
+comfort of our disabled soldiers and the families dependent on them for
+support."
+
+In the financial controversies which accompanied and followed the period
+of "reconstruction" after the war, and were involved in the payment and
+adjustment of the national debt, Mr. Cooper appeared as an advocate of
+the "Greenback" party, and did not seem to realize that this was a
+complete reversal of his earlier position as a "hard-money" Democrat. I
+think the clue to this change may be found in his recollection of the
+war waged by Andrew Jackson on the United States Bank, and a vague
+feeling that the national banking system instituted by Secretary Chase
+was open to similar objections. To this may be added his growing
+inclination in favor of "paternal government,"--which in a man so
+thoroughly self-supporting and self-reliant can be explained only by the
+fact that his personal philanthropy overbalanced his political
+philosophy; that he became more anxious to relieve the distress he saw
+than to question the wisdom of measures taken for that purpose. Two
+things are certain: first, that Mr. Cooper's motives in his later
+political course were thoroughly pure and unselfish; and secondly, that
+his utterances and publications in this connection show him to be
+dealing with subjects which he did not understand. This statement is
+made without regard to the merits of the controversy, or the strength of
+the arguments contributed to it by others. The simple truth is that Mr.
+Cooper was too old to make original investigation of such questions,
+intelligently weighing all the modern conditions of industry and
+commerce, in which he was no longer an active participant. He accepted
+in 1876 the nomination of the Greenback party for the presidency; but
+the issue was already practically dead, and he received but 81,740 votes
+out of a total of 8,412,833 cast. Undaunted by this defeat, he continued
+to utter his views. Those who wish to study them in detail may consult
+the volume "Ideas for a Science of Good Government in Addresses,
+Letters, and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff, and Civil
+Service," which he issued at the age of ninety-two, in the last year of
+his life. His own summary of his position, given on page 212 of this
+book, shows that he desired a national legal-tender paper currency,
+irredeemable in coin, but "interconvertible" with government bonds, and
+regulated by law as to volume per capita; a "discriminating" protective
+tariff, "helpful to all the industries of the country, where the raw
+material and the labor can be furnished by our own people;" and a civil
+service divorced from party politics, based on personal fitness, with
+tenure of office during good behavior, moderate salaries, and pensions
+for the aged and sick, and provision for widows and orphans.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE END
+
+
+IN 1874, at the age of eighty-three, Mr. Cooper said at a reception
+given in his honor:--
+
+"When I was born, New York contained 27,000 inhabitants. The upper
+limits of the city were at Chambers Street. Not a single free school,
+either by day or night, existed. General Washington had just entered
+upon his first term as President of the United States, the whole annual
+expenditures of which did not exceed $2,500,000, being about sixty cents
+per head of the population. Not a single steam engine had yet been built
+or erected on the American continent; and the people were clad in
+homespun, and were characterized by the simple virtues and habits which
+are usually associated with that primitive garb. I need not tell you
+what the country now is, and what the habits and the garments of its
+people now are, or that the expenditure, per capita, of the general
+government has increased fifteen-fold. But I have witnessed and taken a
+deep interest in every step of the marvellous development and progress
+which have characterized this century beyond all the centuries which
+have gone before.
+
+"Measured by the achievements of the years I have seen, I am one of the
+oldest men who have ever lived; but I do not feel old, and I propose to
+give you the receipt by which I have preserved my youth.
+
+"I have always given a friendly welcome to new ideas, and I have
+endeavored not to feel too old to learn; and thus, though I stand here
+with the snows of so many winters upon my head, my faith in human
+nature, my belief in the progress of man to a better social condition,
+and especially my trust in the ability of men to establish and maintain
+self-government, are as fresh and as young as when I began to travel the
+path of life.
+
+"While I have always recognized that the object of business is to make
+money in an honorable manner, I have endeavored to remember that the
+object of life is to do good. Hence I have been ready to engage in all
+new enterprises, and, without incurring debt, to risk in their promotion
+the means which I had acquired, provided they seemed to me calculated to
+advance the general good. This will account for my early attempt to
+perfect the steam engine, for my attempt to construct the first American
+locomotive, for my connection with the telegraph in a course of efforts
+to unite our country with the European world, and for my recent efforts
+to solve the problem of economical steam navigation on the canals; to
+all of which you have so kindly referred. It happens to but few men to
+change the current of human progress, as it did to Watt, to Fulton, to
+Stephenson, and to Morse; but most men may be ready to welcome laborers
+to a new field of usefulness, and to clear the road for their progress.
+
+"This I have tried to do, as well in the perfecting and execution of
+their ideas as in making such provision as my means have permitted for
+the proper education of the young mechanics and citizens of my native
+city, in order to fit them for the reception of new ideas, social,
+mechanical, and scientific--hoping thus to economize and expand the
+intellectual as well as the physical forces, and provide a larger fund
+for distribution among the various classes which necessarily make up the
+total of society. If our lives shall be such that we shall receive the
+glad welcome of 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' we shall then
+know that we have not lived in vain."
+
+For nine years after this utterance he continued the peaceful and happy
+life which it describes. When the end came, it was quiet and painless.
+Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and whispering with almost
+his last breath the desire for an increase of his bequest to that other
+well-beloved child, the Cooper Union, he "fell on sleep," April 4, 1883.
+
+On the day of his funeral New York city presented an almost unexampled
+spectacle. All Soul's Unitarian Church, in which his body was
+deposited, early in the morning was thronged with a mighty multitude,
+passing in procession to look upon the beloved face. Eighteen young men
+from the Cooper Union surrounded it, as a guard of honor. A body of 3500
+students of that institution, of both sexes, marched by, casting flowers
+upon the coffin, and followed by delegations from all the municipal and
+charitable organizations of the city, and by uncounted multitudes, whose
+relation to the beloved philanthropist was not official or
+representative, but simply personal.
+
+The busiest streets of New York, through which the funeral procession
+passed on its way to Greenwood Cemetery, beyond the East River, were
+closed to business and hung in black. The flags on all public buildings,
+and on the ships in the harbor, were at half-mast. The bells of all
+churches were tolled. The whole city mourned, as it had not done since,
+eighty years before, the funeral procession of George Washington moved
+through its streets.
+
+If we seek, without affectionate prejudice, to discover the cause of
+this universal grief, affection, and admiration, we shall find, I think,
+that it lies chiefly in two circumstances; namely, the character of
+Peter Cooper as a lover of his kind, and the opportunity afforded him by
+his long life, not only to prove that character, but to become
+personally known to many thousands of those whom he sought unselfishly
+to serve. Few persons except military commanders have such an
+opportunity. The philanthropists who labor in secret, no matter with
+what noble motive, and do not come face to face with their
+beneficiaries, may win the applause of posterity, but cannot expect to
+receive the immediate and personal affection of their contemporaries.
+Least of all do posthumous gifts arouse this sentiment. Peter Cooper,
+above all other claims to renown and gratitude, identified himself with
+his philanthropy, and was known where he was loved.
+
+          "Who gives himself with his gift, feeds three:
+           Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+The original text had the list of books first and then the first title
+page. These were reversed so that the title occurs first in this
+edition.
+
+Page xii, "8" changed to "6" (6. This experience)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Cooper
+       The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4
+
+Author: Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+Release Date: August 31, 2008 [EBook #26498]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER COOPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>The Riverside Biographical Series</h3>
+
+<h3>NUMBER 4</h3>
+
+
+<h1>PETER COOPER</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ROSSITER W. RAYMOND</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='bbox'>
+<h3>The Riverside Biographical Series</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="List of books">
+<tr><td align='right'>1.</td><td align='left'>ANDREW JACKSON, by <span class="smcap">W. G. Brown</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>2.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;JAMES B. EADS, by <span class="smcap">Louis How</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>3.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by <span class="smcap">Paul E. More</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>4.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;PETER COOPER, by <span class="smcap">R. W. Raymond</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>5.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;THOMAS JEFFERSON, by <span class="smcap">H. C. Merwin</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>6.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;WILLIAM PENN, by <span class="smcap">George Hodges</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>7.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;GENERAL GRANT, by <span class="smcap">Walter Allen</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>8.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;LEWIS AND CLARK, by <span class="smcap">William R. Lighton</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>9.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;JOHN MARSHALL, by <span class="smcap">James B. Thayer</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>10.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by <span class="smcap">Chas. A. Conant</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>11.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;WASHINGTON IRVING, by <span class="smcap">H. W. Boynton</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>12.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;PAUL JONES, by <span class="smcap">Hutchins Hapgood</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>13.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by <span class="smcap">W. G. Brown</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>14.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by <span class="smcap">H. D. Sedgwick</span>, Jr.</td></tr>
+</table></div><div class='center'><br />&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="hang1">Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure
+portrait, 65 cents, <i>net;</i> <i>School Edition</i>, each,
+50 cents, <i>net</i>.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 314px;">
+<img src="images/portrait.jpg" width="314" height="500" alt="(signed) Peter Cooper" title="(signed) Peter Cooper" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>PETER COOPER</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ROSSITER W. RAYMOND<br /><br /></h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 161px;">
+<img src="images/emblem.png" width="161" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
+<small>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</small><br />
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+<b>The Riverside Press Cambridge</b><br /></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='copyright'>
+COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.<br />
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><small>CHAP.</small></td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ancestry</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Boyhood and Youth</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Business Ventures</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Inventions</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Tom Thumb</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Municipal Affairs</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">National Politics</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The End</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the last decade of Peter Cooper's
+life, the writer of this biographical sketch
+enjoyed some degree of intimacy with him,
+as professional adviser and traveling companion,
+and also, incidentally, as consulting
+engineer of the firm of Cooper and Hewitt,
+and manager of a department in the Cooper
+Union. This circumstance, together with
+the preference kindly expressed by Mr.
+Cooper's family, doubtless influenced the selection
+of the writer for the honorable task
+of preparing this book,&mdash;a task which was
+welcome as a labor of love, though the execution
+of it has been hindered and impaired
+by the demands of other duties. The real
+difficulty has been to compress within the
+prescribed limits a story covering so many
+years and so many topics, yet not possessing
+those features of dramatic action or adventure
+which could be treated briefly, with
+picturesque effect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper's family has kindly furnished
+abundant material for this work, including,
+besides his own published utterances, the
+notes of the stenographer to whom Mr.
+Cooper, in the last years of his life, dictated
+his "reminiscences." The use which has
+been made of these will be evident to the
+reader. Beyond an occasional revelation of
+the character of the speaker, or a side-light
+thrown upon the manners and conditions of
+our early national life, they have not furnished
+valuable data; and the study of
+them suggests an observation which may be
+heeded with advantage in similar cases hereafter,
+though it comes too late to be useful in
+this instance, namely, that the recollections
+of old people with retentive memories, like
+Peter Cooper, may be invaluable, if they
+are intelligently aroused and guided; but if
+the speakers (as in his case) are left to their
+own initiative, they are too likely to furnish
+superfluous accounts of events already described
+more accurately in authentic contemporaneous
+records.</p>
+
+<p>It has not been practicable to preserve,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
+in the treatment of the subject, a strictly
+chronological order. As the titles of the
+several chapters indicate, the different lines
+of Mr. Cooper's activity have been considered,
+to some extent, separately, so that
+their periods overlap each other.</p>
+
+<p>This sketch of Mr. Cooper's career furnishes
+the elements of an analysis, which I
+introduce here, as a guide in the interpretation
+of what is to follow.</p>
+
+<p>1. The time of his birth and the prophetic
+anticipations of his parents profoundly
+influenced his ambition to do something
+great for his fellow-citizens of the
+republic whose life began so nearly with
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>2. The atmosphere surrounding his youth
+was one of unlimited and audacious adventure.
+New institutions, a virgin continent,
+the ardent desire to be independent of the
+Old World, and a profound belief in the
+destiny of America, all combined to stimulate
+endeavor. What Peter Cooper said of
+himself as an apprentice was true of the typical
+young American of his time: "I was always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
+planning and contriving, and was never
+satisfied unless I was doing something difficult&mdash;something
+that had never been done
+before, if possible."</p>
+
+<p>3. The new freedom and the vast opportunity
+presented in the young republic encouraged,
+to a degree not paralleled before
+or since, that change of occupation which,
+with all its drawbacks, had the one great
+merit that it educated men to various activities.
+It was no disgrace to an American
+to go into one business after another, seeking
+the one which would prove most profitable
+and agreeable. Thus, Peter Cooper
+worked successively as a hatter, a coach-builder,
+a machinist, a machine-maker, a
+grocer, an iron-worker, and a glue-manufacturer,
+achieving success in every occupation,
+but abandoning each for something more
+promising, and learning in each something
+which promoted his success in the next.</p>
+
+<p>4. At every stage of his progress, he followed
+the ideal of personal independence,
+the honest acquisition of property, the establishment
+of a home, and the rearing of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
+family. These were the first duties and the
+dearest wishes&mdash;no matter what greater
+things might lie beyond. And he profoundly
+realized that temperance, industry,
+frugality, and patience were the necessary
+preliminaries to any longed-for achievement.
+As he says, he had first to spend thirty
+years in getting a start; then to spend another
+thirty years in accumulating the means
+for further advance into the wider sphere of
+his aspirations. And during each stage of
+this process, he was patient, as well as hopeful,
+neither wasting his energies in visionary
+schemes nor allowing the eddies of daily
+toil to divert the current of his deeper purposes.</p>
+
+<p>5. At every stage, however, he found
+himself hindered by lack of thorough knowledge.
+He invented perpetually and profusely;
+but some of his most cherished inventions
+did not find practical recognition,
+because he had attempted the premature or
+the impossible. His guiding principle, of
+trying to do something that had never been
+done before, is not an adequate substitute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
+for a scientific knowledge of what can be,
+and now needs to be, done. He found himself
+often too far in advance of his generation.
+Moreover, he found that the lack of
+education crippled him in the attempt to
+make other men understand and appreciate
+his fruitful ideas. This is true of all really
+great "self-made men." They may have
+achieved success and fame in spite of early
+disadvantages; they may, perhaps, recognize
+the fact that such disadvantages, necessitating
+a stern struggle, have sifted out,
+by natural selection, the possessors of genius
+and sterling character; but not one of them
+fails to lament the lack of that early training
+which would have made him still more successful
+than he is; and not one of them
+fails to desire, for his children and the coming
+generation of his fellows, the early advantages
+which were denied to himself.</p>
+
+<p>6. This experience it was which gave
+form to the aspirations and purposes of
+Peter Cooper. As an apprentice, he resolved
+to do something for the benefit of
+apprentices&mdash;to found some institution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>
+which should supplement the deficiencies of
+early education, furnishing to virtuous, industrious,
+and ambitious youths the means
+of progress, and attracting the thoughtless
+or indolent into the same ascending road.
+How this conception came to be both modified
+and realized will be seen in later pages.
+At this point it is sufficient to note that
+the plan was originally not only philanthropic,
+but patriotic and practical. It contemplated
+the benefit, through means adapted
+to their special condition, of Americans of
+that class to which Peter Cooper himself belonged.</p>
+
+<p>Some further observations concerning the
+secret of the universal esteem and affection
+enjoyed by Mr. Cooper will be reserved for
+the closing chapter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PETER COOPER</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+<h3>ANCESTRY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Obadiah Cooper</span>, who, with his two
+brothers, came from England to the colony
+of New York about 1662, belonged, as we
+may infer with confidence, to that sturdy
+class of republican yeomanry which found
+the restored reign of the Stuarts intolerable.
+He settled at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson; and
+his son Obadiah&mdash;whom tradition declares
+to have been the fourth white man child
+born in what is now Dutchess County&mdash;was
+the great-grandfather of Peter Cooper. In
+1720 an Obadiah of the next generation
+followed, and of his son John, born in 1755,
+Peter Cooper was the fifth child.</p>
+
+<p>John Cooper came of age in the year of
+the Declaration of Independence. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+issue between the British government and
+the American colonies his choice could not
+be doubtful. He followed the traditions of
+his family. Indeed, it is now well established
+and universally admitted that the
+patriots of the American Revolution were
+not in fact arrayed against England. They
+were engaged in a struggle which was but a
+part of the great conflict waged against shortsighted
+and obstinate tyranny by Englishmen
+on both sides of the ocean, and in which
+the victory for liberty was won on this
+side sooner than on the other. What the
+Coopers and their kind achieved here was
+applauded openly in the mother country by
+the descendants of a common ancestry as a
+triumph for the common cause. The use of
+foreign mercenaries under British commanders
+in this country was the direct result of
+the impossibility of inducing Englishmen to
+enlist for service against their American
+kinsmen. Hence when John Cooper, of
+Fishkill, abandoned in 1776 the business he
+had just established as a hatter, and became
+sergeant in a company of "minute-men," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+was but pursuing the course indicated both
+by his own convictions and by the history of
+his fathers and the sympathies of the party
+in England to which they had belonged. It
+was Freedom's battle "handed down from
+sire to son."</p>
+
+<p>He served subsequently for two years in
+the Continental line, and for the last four
+years of the war as a lieutenant in the
+New York militia, actively employed in the
+perilous service of protecting life, property,
+and the public stores in the zone of debatable
+territory,&mdash;the "bloody ground"
+which surrounded the British lines in New
+York. At the close of the war, New York
+having been evacuated by the enemy, Lieutenant
+John Cooper retired to civil life, and
+resumed business as a hatter in that city,&mdash;a
+worthy example of that American citizen
+soldiery which has always been equally ready
+to leave the ways of peace for its country's
+defense, and to return to them when the
+exigency had passed.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1779, during his military service,
+that John Cooper married Margaret, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+daughter of John Campbell, a deputy quartermaster-general
+in the Continental army, and a
+trusted agent of Washington. The outbreak
+of hostilities in 1776 had found John Campbell
+a prosperous merchant and owner of
+real estate in New York city. He at once
+lent to the Revolutionary government eleven
+hundred guineas,&mdash;the whole of his ready
+money,&mdash;entered the service, was made
+deputy quartermaster-general, and was directed
+to superintend the hasty evacuation
+of the city by the Whig inhabitants, and to
+protect them and their property as far as
+possible. Lingering too long to assist some
+of the laggards, he was captured by the forces
+landed from the British fleet, but was subsequently
+released; and he made a temporary
+home at Fishkill while actively engaged in
+establishing the lines by which the British
+army, though holding the city and commanding
+its access to the sea, was practically besieged.
+General Campbell served throughout
+the war, and after hostilities had ceased
+commanded the troops at West Point until
+they were finally disbanded in 1785.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is easy to imagine how the young lieutenant
+and the daughter of the commander
+who must have been frequently brought into
+personal relations with him may have met
+and loved and wedded in the midst of those
+troublous times, but the romance would have
+no special bearing on this history. It is
+enough to say that by this marriage the best
+blood of England and Scotland&mdash;of servants
+of God and lovers of freedom&mdash;was
+blended in the nine children, seven sons
+and two daughters, of whom Peter Cooper&mdash;born
+February 12, 1791, in Little Dock
+(now Water) Street, New York&mdash;was the
+fifth.</p>
+
+<p>John Cooper was not characteristically a
+seer of visions or a dreamer of dreams. On
+the contrary, the accounts of him which
+have come down to us describe him as a
+stalwart athlete, who "could lift a barrel
+of cider from the ground and put it in a
+wagon," and who once, being cornered and
+attacked by a bull, seized the animal's nose
+with one hand and so battered its head with
+a stone that it was glad to turn and fly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+Yet he came of a race that believed in Divine
+guidance; and on one occasion at least
+he acted upon that belief in a matter then
+deemed more important, perhaps, than now.
+The incident can be given best in the words
+of Peter Cooper himself, who wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My father used to tell me how he came
+to call me Peter. When I was born he became
+strongly impressed with the idea that
+I would some day have more than ordinary
+fame, and what name he should give me was
+a matter of serious and frequent thought.
+While walking on Broadway one dark night
+it seemed as though a voice spoke to him in
+a clear and distinct manner: 'Call him
+Peter!' That seeming voice settled my
+name. My father said that he felt that I
+was to be of great good in some way; and
+his remarks, with my mother's, concerning
+their aspirations and hopes for me acted as a
+stimulus and made me anxious to fulfill their
+wishes, and not disappoint them."</p>
+
+<p>If names were to be characteristic of individual
+careers, it might be better to imitate
+some Indian tribes, and to give the permanent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+name only after the career, or at
+least the character, of its recipient had been
+indicated by his acts. In this instance the
+subsequent life of the son did not in any
+peculiar way imitate that of the Apostle
+Peter. Evidently not that particular name,
+but the simple fact that an eminent name,
+thus suggested and not already familiar in his
+family, had been given to him, produced
+upon his mind the effect to which he testifies.</p>
+
+<p>But why should practical John Cooper
+be disposed to anticipate a special distinction
+for the infant who was the fifth of his
+numerous progeny? From the standpoint
+of the modes of thought of the godly patriots
+of that generation, and of their ancestors,
+the English Puritans and the Scotch Covenanters,
+it is scarcely hazardous to assume
+that current public affairs largely affected
+such domestic choices. Peter Cooper's birth
+was practically simultaneous with the launching
+of that Ship of State, the "Union, strong
+and great," in which all patriots had embarked
+"their hopes, triumphant o'er their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+fears." To his veteran-soldier father he
+was the first child of the new era; and the
+dreams that were dreamed over him were
+doubtless connected with that glorious future
+which had just dawned upon the federated
+republic. The choice of an unfamiliar, non-hereditary
+name, however suggested, symbolized
+the break between the old time and
+the new.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, this incident produced in the
+son thus christened the profoundest effects,
+the deepest motives, that can inspire a boyish
+soul,&mdash;the belief in a beneficent mission,
+the yearning to discover it, the resolve to
+execute it, and the conviction that it was to
+be directly connected with the prosperity
+and progress of the great nation, the life of
+which began with his own.</p>
+
+<p>The naming of Peter Cooper thus strikes
+the keynote, or, more accurately, the triple
+chord, of his life. For he was first of all an
+American, keenly aware of the opportunities
+offered by the free institutions of his country
+to individual ambition, industry, and
+genius, and of his own personal ability to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+make use of these opportunities. Secondly,
+he was a lover of his fellow men, determined
+to employ for their benefit the means
+and powers which he felt himself able to
+accumulate by thought, toil, and frugal economy.
+Thirdly, he was even in his philanthropy
+essentially still an American, intent
+most of all upon the welfare of those classes
+of his countrymen with whose struggles and
+needs his own early life had made him familiar.
+In other words, while his philanthropy
+covered a world-wide range, his peculiar mission,
+as he conceived it, was indissolubly blent
+with the success of the republic of which he
+was one of the earliest-born sons.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<h3>BOYHOOD AND YOUTH</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> a meeting of friends, gathered February
+12, 1882, to celebrate his ninety-first birthday
+anniversary, Mr. Cooper, after expressing
+his thanks for their congratulatory good
+wishes, and observing that in his case "length
+of days had not yet resulted in weariness of
+spirit," added this review of his life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Looking back, I can see that my career
+has been divided into three eras. During
+the first thirty years I was engaged in getting
+a start in life; during the second thirty
+years I was occupied in getting means for
+carrying out the modest plan which I had
+long formed for the benefit of my fellow
+men; and during the last thirty years I have
+devoted myself to the execution of these
+plans. This work is now done."</p>
+
+<p>Accepting this division of his career, as
+convenient, though not strictly accurate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+(since the processes described really overlapped
+instead of separately succeeding one
+another), we may consider first Mr. Cooper's
+means and method of achieving personal
+success; and in this survey the conditions of
+his boyhood and early youth are primarily
+important.</p>
+
+<p>While he was still very young, the family
+removed from a temporary residence of three
+years in New York city to Peekskill, where
+he remained until, at the age of seventeen,
+he returned to New York as an apprentice,
+to be, thenceforward, dependent upon his
+own exertions for a living.</p>
+
+<p>The intervening period was spent in ways
+characteristic of the period and of the individual.
+He attended school for three or
+four "quarters," of which period, according
+to his later recollection, "probably half was
+occupied by 'half-day' school." Outside of
+this scanty formal instruction, there is
+ample evidence that he developed body and
+mind in varied work and play. He bore to
+the end of life the scars of youthful escapades,
+witnessing the adventurous spirit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+his boyhood. When only four years old,
+he climbed about the framework of a new
+house, and fell, head downward, upon an
+iron kettle, cutting his forehead to the bone.
+Later on, he was accidentally cut with a knife
+in the hands of a playmate. Later still, he
+cut himself dangerously with an axe. Again,
+he fell from a high tree, holding an iron
+hook with which he had been reaching for
+cherry-bearing branches, and managed to
+hook out one of his teeth. At another time
+he went for the nest of a hanging-bird, and
+had the fact that it was a hornet's nest indelibly
+impressed on his memory. Of course,
+he was nearly drowned three times,&mdash;such
+youngsters always have such escapes. In
+short, he was a thorough boy, adventuring
+all things, daunted by nothing, and protected
+from the results of his reckless endeavors
+by that Providence which watches
+over small boys.</p>
+
+<p>But such a temperament finds play in
+useful work also. The boy learned every
+department of the hat-making business, beginning,
+when he was very young, with pulling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+the fur from the skins of rabbits. And,
+while assisting his mother in doing the
+family washing, he made what was, perhaps,
+his first invention,&mdash;a mechanical arrangement
+for pounding the soiled linen. Again,
+after carefully dissecting an old shoe, to learn
+how it was put together, he determined to
+make shoes and slippers for the family, and
+succeeded in turning out products of manufacture
+which were said to be as good as
+those to be found, at that day, in the regular
+trade.</p>
+
+<p>He constructed a toy wagon, sold it for
+six dollars, managed to gather four dollars
+more, invested the ten dollars in lottery
+tickets, and drew only blanks, of which experience
+he said many years later, "I consider
+it one of the best investments of my life; for
+I then learned that it was not my <i>forte</i> to
+make money at games of chance."</p>
+
+<p>When he was between thirteen and fourteen
+years old, his father built a large malt-house
+at Newburg, and the son loaded with
+his own hands and carted to the site selected
+all the stone for the building. Collecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+wild honey and shooting game in the forests
+around Peekskill were additional employments
+which combined pleasure with profit.
+But this life did not satisfy the ambition of
+the youth; and in 1808, at the age of seventeen,
+he left the paternal roof and apprenticed
+himself for four years to John Woodward,
+a leading coach-builder in New York,
+whose shop was located on the corner of
+Broadway and Chambers Street, then the
+northerly edge of the city, opposite a vegetable
+garden, the remnants of which, after
+the occupation of a large portion by city,
+county, and national buildings, now constitute
+the City Hall Park. The terms of his
+employment were his board and a salary of
+twenty-five dollars a year,&mdash;out of which he
+managed not only to pay all obligations, but
+also to lay by a little money. During this
+period he not only mastered the details of
+the trade, but learned in his hours of leisure
+other branches, such as ornamental wood-carving,
+and made several inventions, one of
+which was a machine for mortising hubs,&mdash;an
+operation performed by hand up to that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+time. Another invention over which the
+young apprentice dreamed, and of which he
+laboriously constructed a model, was an apparatus
+for utilizing, in the running of machinery,
+the swift current of the tide in the
+East River.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
+<h2>III</h2>
+
+<h3>BUSINESS VENTURES</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the end of his apprenticeship, his employer
+offered to set him up in business as
+a coach-builder, lending him the necessary
+capital. Many years later, Mr. Cooper told
+the story thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to accept his generous offer,
+when an incident occurred which changed
+my decision. Mr. Woodward had just completed
+one of the finest coaches ever built in
+New York, for a gentleman who was supposed
+to be one of the richest men in the
+city. But a day or two before the coach
+was to be delivered the gentleman died, and
+it was then found that he was insolvent.
+This made me hesitate. If I should accept
+my employer's kind offer and have such a
+misfortune happen to me in the sale of an
+elegant and expensive coach, I should consider
+myself a slave for life, since the law of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+imprisonment for debt had not then been
+abolished. So I changed my plans, and
+went to Hempstead, Long Island, to visit my
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>The visit to Hempstead became a prolonged
+residence. He obtained work at
+$1.50 a day (then regarded as high wages)
+in a factory making machines for shearing
+cloth, and after nearly three years had
+saved enough money to purchase the right
+for the State of New York to a patented
+machine for that purpose. He used to tell,
+in his old age, of his elation when he effected
+his first sale of a county-right, for which he
+received five hundred dollars from Mr. Vassar,
+of Poughkeepsie, afterwards the founder
+of Vassar College.</p>
+
+<p>The manufacture and sale of the new
+shearing-machine, into which Mr. Cooper
+introduced many additional improvements,
+was a prosperous business, especially during
+the war of 1812, when domestic woolen
+goods were in great demand. He married,
+December 18, 1813, Sarah Bedell, a lady of
+Huguenot descent, who made for him a happy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+home during fifty-seven years.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He bought
+a house in Hempstead, expecting to remain
+there; and in the household, as in business,
+he gave rein to his ardent and versatile inventive
+faculty. One of his domestic contrivances
+rocked the cradle, fanned away
+the flies, and played a lullaby to the baby.
+He sold the patent in Connecticut to a
+Yankee peddler for a horse and wagon, and
+the peddler's stock, including a hurdy-gurdy.
+Another invention was a machine for mowing
+grass, constructed on the principle of his
+cloth-shearing machine.</p>
+
+<p>But after the war, the domestic woolen
+mills were shut down, and there was no sale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+for Mr. Cooper's machines. So he first
+turned his factory into a furniture shop, and
+then, selling it for what he could get, he
+moved to New York, and started in the
+grocery business, buying for this purpose a
+long lease of the ground where the Bible
+House now stands, opposite the Cooper
+Union on Ninth Street. Upon this ground
+he erected several buildings, one of which
+he used as his office. The business was
+profitable; but the real foundation of Mr.
+Cooper's wealth was laid when, at the age
+of thirty-three, he purchased a glue factory,
+situated where the Park Avenue Hotel now
+stands, and established himself as a glue
+manufacturer. The business speedily acquired
+and held for half a century practically
+the whole trade of the country in glue
+and isinglass,&mdash;a monopoly fairly earned by
+the cheapness and excellence of its product.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper's inventions improved the
+quality and reduced the cost of his product,
+while his energy, industry, and frugality
+steadily increased his surplus cash, and enabled
+him, without borrowing capital, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+extend his sphere of operations. For many
+years, he carried on his glue business without
+bookkeeper, agent, or salesman. Dawn
+found him at the suburban factory (on what is
+now Thirty-Second Street) lighting the fires
+and preparing for the day's work; at noon,
+he drove in his buggy to the city, where he
+made his own sales and purchases; and all
+his evenings he spent at home, making up
+his accounts, answering his correspondents,
+studying out new inventions, or talking and
+reading to his wife and children.</p>
+
+<p>By these simple, old-fashioned methods he
+built up a business and accumulated a fortune
+too large to be thus administered. It would
+have been impossible for one head to carry the
+details of work and management, for one pair
+of eyes to superintend each part of the work,
+or for one pair of feet, however tireless, to
+travel all the ways which lead to and from a
+great modern industrial establishment. Still
+less could financial direction and protection be
+compassed by the simple scheme which Mr.
+Cooper, in his old age, recalled with pride.
+"I used," he said once, "to pay all my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+debts every Saturday night; and I knew
+that what I had left was my own!" This
+could not have been strictly true; but it
+doubtless expressed an old man's memory of
+the way he began, and the principles he had
+followed, with that horror of debt which
+dated from the time when debtors could be
+put in jail. Fortunately for Mr. Cooper, his
+son Edward, and his son-in-law, Abram S.
+Hewitt, were at hand to undertake the management
+of his business enterprises at the
+time when his own simple methods would
+have proved inadequate, so that his inventive
+genius, adventurous courage, and, above
+all, intense philanthropy, were backed with
+ample means.</p>
+
+<p>In this account of his business ventures
+(though of much later date than those already
+mentioned) the part played by Peter
+Cooper in the development of the American
+iron industry and in the construction of the
+first transatlantic submarine telegraph may
+be recorded.</p>
+
+<p>The manufacture of iron was one of the
+early industries of the American colonies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+and after the Revolution it was prosecuted
+with increased activity in small and primitive
+establishments. With its development
+into scientific forms on a large scale Mr.
+Cooper was both directly and indirectly connected.
+His Ringwood estate in New Jersey
+had been the scene of the operations of the
+Ringwood Company in 1740, and of its successors,&mdash;Hasenclever
+(1764) and Erskine
+(1771); and the Durham furnace, on the
+Delaware River in Pennsylvania (on the site
+of the Durham Iron Works of Cooper &amp;
+Hewitt), made its first blast in 1727. Mr.
+Cooper himself was engaged in 1830 in the
+manufacture of charcoal iron near Baltimore,
+and in 1836, together with his brother
+Thomas, he operated a rolling-mill in New
+York (on Thirty-Third Street, near Third
+Avenue). At this mill anthracite was used
+for puddling in 1840. In 1845 the business
+was removed to Trenton, N. J.; and in
+the new rolling-mill&mdash;then the largest in
+the United States&mdash;built at Trenton for
+the manufacture of rails, the first iron beams
+for buildings were rolled in 1854. By the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+erection of blast furnaces at Phillipsburg
+and Ringwood, N. J., and Durham, Pa., and
+the addition of wire mills, bridge shop, chain
+shop, etc., to the works at Trenton, the purchase
+of iron and coal lands, and the development
+of numerous mines, the firm of Cooper
+&amp; Hewitt achieved high rank among the
+ironmasters of America; and the Iron and
+Steel Institute of Great Britain conferred
+upon Peter Cooper in 1879 the "Bessemer
+gold medal" for his services in the development
+of the American iron trade. In 1890
+the same honor was given to Mr. Abram S.
+Hewitt in recognition of the experiments at
+Phillipsburg as early as 1856 to test the
+new invention of Bessemer, of his introduction
+of the open-hearth steel process into the
+United States, and of other services rendered
+to the steel industry,&mdash;in all of which he
+may be said to have followed, with the advantages
+of a wider culture and ampler
+means, the example set by Mr. Cooper.</p>
+
+<p>One of the boldest yet wisest and most
+profitable operations of Mr. Cooper was his
+investment in the Atlantic cable enterprise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+of Cyrus Field. He was already past middle
+age when this audacious scheme began
+to be dreamed of. In 1842 Morse had laid
+down an experimental cable from Castle
+Garden to Governor's Island in New York
+harbor, and claimed as a practical inference
+that a telegraphic communication on his
+plan could "with certainty be established
+across the Atlantic."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In 1851 the first
+cable was laid between France and England,
+and others rapidly followed on ocean lines
+over short distances. The principle was
+thus established, and the doubts as to its
+practical application to a line of at least
+twenty-five hundred miles were of such a
+character as to seem more serious to scientific
+men than to American capitalists of Mr.
+Cooper's type. In March, 1854, the New
+York, Newfoundland, &amp; London Telegraph
+Company was organized, and Mr. Cooper
+became (and remained for twenty trying
+years) its president. There was little difficulty
+in raising the money for the eighty-five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+miles of cable which were to be laid
+under the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or in obtaining
+from the British colonies favorable
+charters granting exclusive privileges, land
+grants, and even subsidies. Yet the construction
+of the land line across Newfoundland
+to the terminus at Heart's Content
+proved difficult and costly, and the St. Lawrence
+cable was lost in laying. Yet additional
+capital was subscribed; and a couple
+of years later the Newfoundland line, the
+St. Lawrence cable, and another submarine
+link of thirteen miles across the Straits of
+Northumberland had been successfully finished.
+Nothing remained to be done <i>except</i>
+the procuring of means and the devising of
+successful methods for the installation of the
+Atlantic cable itself, without which all this
+preliminary expenditure would have been
+thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>The capital estimated as necessary for
+making and laying the cable was raised by
+Mr. Field in England, where the Atlantic
+Telegraph Company was formed to construct
+and operate the line under concessions from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+the parent Newfoundland company. All
+classes in England felt a sentimental interest
+in the romantic enterprise; and the
+subscribers to the new stock included such
+men as Thackeray and others of equal note,
+outside of business circles altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The company proceeded with vigor,&mdash;secured
+from the governments of Great Britain
+and the United States guaranties of
+subsidies and the free use of ships for laying
+the cable; contracts for the cable and its insulating
+covering were executed; and by the
+end of July, 1857, the British Agamemnon
+and the American Niagara had each twelve
+hundred and fifty miles of it on board.
+In August they connected the two halves of
+it in mid-Atlantic, and in September the
+shore end was landed at Heart's Content.</p>
+
+<p>The sequel is familiar history. A few
+messages had been sent and received, when
+the current grew weaker and weaker, and at
+last failed entirely. The result was a strong
+reaction in popular sentiment. It was even
+questioned whether any messages had actually
+crossed the Atlantic. Fortunately this doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+could be conclusively disproved,&mdash;especially
+in England, where it was known that the
+British government had wired by the cable
+before its failure news of great political importance.
+The British company indeed courageously
+proceeded to make another cable;
+but when this parted in mid-ocean during
+the process of laying it even British tenacity
+of purpose was daunted, and for some two
+years the enterprise seemed to be dead.
+Meanwhile public opinion on this side was
+far more unfavorable, and the parent company
+found itself without means or credit.
+To retain its privileges it must pay additional
+money, and to make those privileges
+worth anything capital must be raised for
+a third attempt to lay the transatlantic
+line.</p>
+
+<p>Without describing in detail the difficulties
+and anxieties of this period, it may be
+said that the intelligent courage of Peter
+Cooper saved the enterprise, while it secured
+to him a large pecuniary reward; for he
+perceived that the real problem had been
+solved by the first apparent failure; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+the failure of a cable in use or the loss of a
+cable in laying it were mere incidental misfortunes
+which more thorough precautions
+and better luck would preclude; and he
+backed with his own faith and money the
+undaunted enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence
+of Mr. Field, whose expenses he paid
+for another journey to England, and who
+succeeded at last in raising there the funds
+for the third and successful attempt. Moreover
+Mr. Cooper upheld the credit of the
+Newfoundland company, personally paying
+the drafts drawn upon it, and taking its
+bonds as his security. It is too much to say
+that the Atlantic cable would never have
+been laid, but there can be no doubt that
+the enterprise would have been long suspended,
+without this timely aid. The third
+cable was a success; the lost second was recovered
+and made useful; and now the thing
+is easy which thus seemed so problematical.
+If Peter Cooper received in the end a handsome
+sum from this investment, who could
+grudge him the wealth so acquired?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>INVENTIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> inventions projected, though in many
+instances not perfected or successfully introduced,
+by Mr. Cooper constitute a long list
+and cover a wide field. A few of them may
+be mentioned here, in addition to those to
+which allusion has been made already. It
+will be seen that even those which failed of
+commercial success generally contained the
+germs of future mechanical progress, and
+bore witness to the extraordinary vigor and
+versatility of his genius.</p>
+
+<p>When the Erie Canal was approaching
+completion it occurred to Mr. Cooper that
+canal boats might be propelled by the power
+of water drawn from a higher level and
+moving a series of endless chains along the
+canal. After some preliminary experiments
+he built a flat-bottomed scow, arranged a
+water wheel to utilize the tidal current in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+the East River, and actually achieved a trial
+trip of two miles and return, in which Governor
+Clinton and other invited guests took
+part. The governor was so well pleased
+that he paid Mr. Cooper eight hundred dollars
+for the first chance to purchase the
+right of applying the method on the new
+canal. But the scheme failed for the reason
+(as Mr. Cooper explained half a century
+later) that the right of way for the Erie
+Canal had been secured from the farmers of
+the State by representing to them the profit
+which they would realize from selling forage,
+etc., for the use of canal boats, which were
+to be drawn by horses or mules. The introduction
+of mechanical power would destroy
+these inducements, and the plan was
+abandoned,&mdash;though Mr. Cooper had demonstrated
+its feasibility by running his
+endless chain on the East River for ten days
+and carrying hundreds of passengers over
+the trial route. It is not likely that such a
+use of water power on the Erie Canal would
+have proved practicable on a large scale;
+but the endless chain, which Mr. Cooper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+apparently considered as a minor feature
+only, has been adopted since, and lies at the
+basis of the famous Belgian system of river
+and canal transportation.</p>
+
+<p>In 1824 the wave of enthusiastic sympathy
+for the Greeks which swept over the
+country upon receipt of the tidings of their
+revolt against Turkish tyranny stimulated
+Mr. Cooper to invent a torpedo boat, to be
+steered from the shore by "two steel wires,
+like the reins of a horse." But on the trial
+trip of the boat a ship crossed and broke the
+wires when about six of their total length of
+ten miles had been let out. The delay made
+the invention too late for use by the Greeks,
+and it was not further pursued.</p>
+
+<p>About 1835 the subject of aerial navigation
+had in the United States one of its
+periodical revivals. Mr. Cooper, believing
+that a motive power developed from materials
+of small weight was essential to the solution
+of the problem, resolved to employ the explosive
+force of chloride of nitrogen,&mdash;one
+of the most dangerous compounds known to
+chemists. The result of his experiments in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+this direction was an explosion which blew
+his apparatus to pieces, and nearly cost the
+audacious inventor an eye. In fact, though
+the organ was saved from total destruction,
+it was permanently injured.</p>
+
+<p>The conveyance of freight by aerial cables&mdash;a
+method now widely used&mdash;was practiced
+by Mr. Cooper at an early day. The
+use of elevators in buildings was foreseen
+and provided for by him in the erection of
+the Cooper Union building, and in that
+building also he introduced for the first time
+iron beams as part of a fire-proof construction.
+In these and other inventions his prophetic
+intuitions were illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>But such intuitions do not fully take the
+place of scientific training; and one of the
+inventions of Peter Cooper&mdash;which he considered
+for many years, and possibly to the
+very last, as his crowning achievement&mdash;was
+a curious example of misdirected ingenuity.
+It is worthy of notice here, however, for
+another reason, namely, because of its accidental
+association with one of its inventor's
+most remarkable triumphs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As a young apprentice he had studied the
+steam engine, and had resolved that he would
+improve it by doing away with the crank.
+To his mind this was a source of great loss
+of power, and he believed that, if he could
+transform the rectilinear motion of the piston
+rod directly into rotary motion without the
+intervention of the crank, he would effect a
+notable economy.</p>
+
+<p>Now, there is no such loss of power through
+the crank as he imagined, nor is it likely that
+any other device for obtaining rotary from
+rectilinear motion will be found superior to
+that which Watt devised. But Peter Cooper
+assailed this fancied evil with undoubting
+confidence, both as to its existence and as to
+his ability to do away with it. The result
+was an invention for which he received,
+April 28, 1828, letters patent of the United
+States. At that early day patents were
+comparatively few,&mdash;so few that this one
+bears no number; and the duties of general
+administration did not prevent the highest
+officials from attending to details. This
+patent, issued to Peter Cooper, of New York,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+was personally signed by John Quincy Adams,
+President; countersigned by Henry
+Clay, Secretary of State; transmitted to
+William Wirt, Attorney-General; examined,
+approved, and signed by him, and returned
+to the Department of State for final delivery
+to the patentee. It grants for fourteen
+years to the said Peter Cooper, his heirs, administrators,
+and assignees the exclusive right
+to make, use, or license others to use, the
+described improvement in the method of effecting
+rotary motion directly from the alternate
+rectilinear motion of a steam piston.
+Evidently these distinguished statesmen&mdash;Adams,
+Clay, and Wirt&mdash;were not experts
+in mechanics, or at least did not undertake
+to hinder by technical criticism the experiments
+of American ambition; and there was
+no trained corps of patent-examiners to decide
+upon the novelty, practicability, and
+usefulness of any proposed improvement in
+the arts. Probably the government shared
+at that time the dominant American feeling
+of unconquerable youth, ready to attack all
+problems, especially those which previous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+experience had pronounced insoluble, and to
+determine the impossible by attempting it.
+This spirit has in fact more or less dominated
+the United States Patent Office down to the
+present time. With all its present equipment
+of examiners, trained in theory and
+versed in technical literature, it still concerns
+itself chiefly in the consideration of a proposed
+invention with the question of novelty,
+rather than that of feasibility or value; and
+the effect has been that, while thousands of
+patents are granted for absurd, unnecessary,
+or inoperative devices, the net result of the
+encouragement thus given to individual ingenuity
+and audacity is a catalogue of great
+inventions unmatched in the history of any
+other nation.</p>
+
+<p>The patent of Peter Cooper, which now
+lies before me,&mdash;a time-stained parchment
+bearing the great seal of the United States
+and the autographs of the famous men named
+above,&mdash;is accompanied by no drawings;
+but it contains a detailed specification which
+shows that the invention consisted in an arrangement
+by which, at each forward movement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+a prolongation of the piston rod clawed
+into an endless chain, which was pulled back
+by the return stroke. This chain passed
+around a wheel, to which it consequently
+imparted a rotary motion.</p>
+
+<p>Engineers do not need to be told that
+this cumbrous arrangement could not successfully
+replace the crank, even if such a
+replacement were desirable. Yet the inventor
+constructed a working-machine, and
+satisfied himself, by a "duty trial" of some
+sort, that it "saved two fifths of the steam."
+His discovery, however, was not hailed with
+immediate recognition by the mechanical
+public; and its author, undisturbed in his
+faith, bided his time.</p>
+
+<p>This, by the way, points to a characteristic
+of Peter Cooper, differentiating him
+from the numerous enthusiasts whom prudent
+men are accustomed to avoid. He
+was not a man "of one idea." His fertile
+and ingenious mind threw out its suggestions
+in every direction, into fields untrodden
+by experience; but when any such plan
+failed of acceptance, he turned, with undiminished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+courage and hope, to something
+else, remaining, nevertheless, still steadfast
+in his former conception, and ready to seize
+any opportunity for its realization.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it came to pass that Mr. Cooper's
+abortive improvement upon the steam engine
+was the source of his fame as the
+builder of the first American locomotive, as
+the following chapter will explain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+<h2>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TOM THUMB</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the specification of the patent secured
+in 1828 by Mr. Cooper for an improved
+steam engine, he took pains to declare the
+suitability of his invention as a motor for
+"land carriages." No doubt he had heard
+of Stephenson's "Rocket," if not of the
+engine built by Blenkinsop in 1813, the
+sight of which in operation caused Stephenson
+to resolve that he would "make a better."
+The famous competitive trial of the
+Rocket, the Novelty, the Sanspareil, and
+the Perseverance, on a two-mile section of
+the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, took
+place in October, 1827, at which time Peter
+Cooper must have been perfecting the application
+for his patent.</p>
+
+<p>But other circumstances played their part
+in the result which we are about to consider.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had
+been drawn into a land speculation at Canton,
+in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing
+of support from his partners, he had been
+obliged to buy them out, and to assume the
+whole burden of the enterprise. Just at
+that time there was great popular expectation
+of the future importance of Baltimore.
+A little earlier, there had been general despair
+among the merchants of that city.
+New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were
+seeking the trade of the region beyond the
+Alleghanies,&mdash;then "the West," but now
+the centre of the population of the United
+States. New York flanked the mountains
+with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia got at
+last a practicable, though less satisfactory,
+water line; but Baltimore, though nearest
+of all to the longed-for market, found,
+through careful examination by eminent
+engineers, that no canal was practicable for
+her, at a cost within her means. In 1824
+and 1825 the consequent general despondency
+concerning the future of the city was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+so strong that Baltimore merchants began
+to move to New York and Philadelphia.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>But at this period the world began to
+hear of railways. A well-known merchant
+of Baltimore, returning from England, described
+with enthusiasm the coal trains,
+drawn by the cumbrous ante-Stephenson
+engines, which he had seen there. The
+idea of a tramway (with or without steam
+motors) found ready acceptance in a community
+both enterprising and desperate. A
+town meeting, held in 1826, to consider
+Western communications, resulted in an application
+to the Maryland legislature, and
+the incorporation, in March, 1827, of the
+Baltimore and Ohio,&mdash;the first railroad
+company thus created in the United States
+for purposes of general transportation,&mdash;the
+leader of that vast multitude of similar enterprises,
+the history of which is the history
+of our nation's marvelous commercial progress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+By the legislative charter, the city
+of Baltimore and the State of Maryland
+were authorized to subscribe to the company's
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>In the address already cited, Mr. Latrobe,
+an eye-witness, says of the scenes
+which followed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then came a scene which almost beggars
+description. By this time, public excitement
+had gone beyond fever heat and
+reached the boiling point. Everybody
+wanted stock. The number of shares subscribed
+were to be apportioned, if the limit
+of the capital should be exceeded; and
+every one set about obtaining proxies. Parents
+subscribed in the names of their children,
+and paid the dollar on each share that
+the rules prescribed. Before even a survey
+had been made, the possession of stock in
+any quantity was regarded as a provision
+for old age; and great was the scramble to
+obtain it. The excitement in Baltimore
+roused public attention elsewhere; and a
+railroad mania began to pervade the land."</p>
+
+<p>The proposed railroad was to pass through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+Mr. Cooper's Canton property, which he
+had already begun to develop, "so that it
+should pay the taxes," by building upon it
+charcoal kilns, after a design of his own,
+with the purpose of turning the forest into
+charcoal, and, by means of this fuel, smelting
+the iron ore which the land contained.
+What was the immediate commercial outcome
+of this enterprise is not recorded.
+Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection, more
+than sixty years later, was that, "with the
+exception of a dangerous explosion," which
+nearly cost him his life, the charcoal kilns
+were "a great success!"</p>
+
+<p>But the great value of the property was
+expected to be realized through the new
+railroad; and this expectation suffered a
+serious blow when the horse cars failed to
+pay expenses; the operation of the line was
+suspended; the directors lost faith in the
+enterprise; and many of the principal stockholders
+declared that they would rather lose
+the investment made so far than "throw
+good money after bad." For the hope that
+the new agency of steam might help them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+out was blighted by the news from England
+that Stephenson had said that steam could
+not be used as a motive power on a road
+having curves of less than 900 feet radius;
+and this road had, at Point of Rocks, a necessary
+curve with a radius of only 150 feet!</p>
+
+<p>The situation presented exactly the sort
+of challenge calculated to arouse the courage
+and ingenuity of Peter Cooper, besides
+appealing to another of his personal characteristics,
+namely, his undying and unalterable
+faith in his own ideas and conclusions,
+whether they had achieved recognition or
+not. He could lay aside a scheme which
+had not found immediate and successful application,
+and turn his attention, with undiminished
+vivacity, to something else; but
+he never owned to a real defeat. And now
+the problem presented at Baltimore seemed
+to him a providential call for his intervention.
+If the English engineers could not
+run their locomotives around sharp curves,
+it must be because they persisted in using
+the vicious crank, which he had already superseded
+by his (temporarily unappreciated)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+invention! And, with unshaken faith in
+that device, he informed the Baltimore and
+Ohio directors (to use the words in which,
+long afterwards, he told the story) that he
+thought he "could knock together a locomotive
+which would get a train around the
+Point of Rocks."</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious circumstance that, ever
+since that day, the characteristic difference
+between English and American locomotives
+has been the ability of the latter to pass
+curves of shorter radius than the former
+can safely follow. The reason, as all railway
+engineers know, is that the usual English
+construction involves a rigid frame,
+while the American has a movable truck or
+"bogie" under the front part of the engine.
+This solution of the problem was not
+reached by Mr. Cooper. What he, in fact,
+accomplished was simply a piece of audacity,
+which encouraged the enterprise of his countrymen,
+by proving that the dictum of limited
+experience abroad was not conclusive.
+Two features of his Baltimore experiment
+were characteristic of him. The first was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+that he undertook it, not merely in order to
+vindicate his invention, but to effect a practical
+result, namely, to make his land speculation
+pay. And the second was that when
+he found it difficult to operate his pet invention
+in this experiment, he laid it aside
+at once,&mdash;without losing an atom of faith
+in it, but also without persisting (as a typical
+enthusiast would have done) in risking
+upon the vindication of his personal opinion
+in one matter the success of another undertaking,
+more immediately important.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper's own recollection of this
+event deserves to be told in his own words.
+He says:<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I came back to New York for a little
+bit of a brass engine of mine&mdash;about one
+horse power (it had a 3&frac12; in. cylinder and
+14 in. stroke)&mdash;and carried it back to Baltimore.
+I got some boiler iron and made a
+boiler about as high as an ordinary wash
+boiler; and then how to connect the boiler
+with the engine I didn't know. I couldn't
+find any iron pipes. The fact was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+there were none for sale in this country.
+So I took two muskets, broke off the wooden
+parts, and used the barrels for tubing, one
+on one side and the other on the other side
+of the boiler. I went into a coach-maker's
+shop and made this locomotive, which I
+called the Tom Thumb, because it was so
+insignificant. I didn't intend it for actual
+service, but only to show the directors what
+could be done. I meant to test two things:
+first, I meant to show that short turns could
+be made; and secondly, that I could get
+rotary motion without the use of a crank.
+I effected both of these things very nicely.
+I changed the movement from a reciprocating
+to a rotary motion.</p>
+
+<p>"I got up steam one Saturday night.
+The president of the road and two or three
+other gentlemen were there. We got on
+the truck and went out two or three miles.
+All were delighted; for it opened new possibilities
+for the railroad. I put up the locomotive
+for the night in a shed, and invited
+the company to ride to Ellicott's Mills
+on Monday. Monday morning, what was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+my chagrin to find that some scamp had
+been there, and chopped off all the copper
+from the engine,&mdash;doubtless in order to sell
+it to some junk dealer!</p>
+
+<p>"It took me a week or more to repair the
+machine; then some one got in and broke a
+piece out of the wheel, in experimenting
+with it; and then two wheels, cast one after
+the other, were damaged by the carelessness
+of the turner. I was thoroughly disgusted
+and discouraged; but, being determined
+that I would not be balked entirely, I
+changed the engine so that the power could
+be applied through the ordinary connection
+with a crank.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>"At last all was ready; and, on a Monday,
+we started,&mdash;six in the engine, and thirty-six
+on the car which I took in tow. We
+went up an average grade of eighteen feet
+to the mile; made the thirteen miles to
+Ellicott's Mills in one hour and twelve minutes;
+and came back in fifty-seven minutes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+The result of that experiment was that the
+bonds of the railroad company were sold at
+once, and there was no longer any doubt as
+to the success of the road."</p>
+
+<p>The Tom Thumb continued for several
+weeks to make trips to Ellicott's Mills; and
+on one occasion (September 18, 1830) ran a
+race from Riley House into Baltimore (about
+nine miles) with a light car, drawn on a
+parallel track by a gray horse noted for speed
+and endurance. The contest was planned
+by the stagecoach proprietors of Baltimore,
+with the view of demonstrating that nothing
+could be gained by the substitution of steam
+for horse power on the railroad. The gray
+horse won the race, but not until after the
+Tom Thumb had passed him, and only by
+reason of a temporary breakdown of the
+machine, which caused a delay too great to
+be subsequently made up. Mr. Cooper's
+characteristic recollection of the event, as
+given fifty-five years later, was that "they
+tried a little race one day, but it didn't
+amount to anything. It was rather funny;
+and the locomotive got out of gear."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Latrobe says of the Tom Thumb:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The machine was not larger than the
+hand cars used by workmen to transfer themselves
+from place to place; and as the speaker
+now recalls its appearance, the only wonder
+is that so apparently insignificant a contrivance
+should ever have been regarded as
+competent to the smallest results. But Mr.
+Cooper was wiser than many of the wisest
+around him. His engine could not have
+weighed a ton; but he saw in it a principle
+which the forty-ton engines of to-day have
+but served to develop and demonstrate.
+The boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine was not
+as large as the kitchen boiler attached to
+many a range in modern mansions. It was
+of about the same diameter, but not much
+more than half as high. It stood upright
+in the car, and was filled above the furnace,
+which occupied the lower section, with vertical
+tubes. The cylinder was but three
+and one half inches in diameter; and speed
+was got up by gearing. No natural draft
+could have been sufficient to get up steam
+in so small a boiler; and Mr. Cooper used,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+therefore, a blowing apparatus, driven by a
+drum, attached to one of the car wheels, over
+which passed a cord, that, in its turn, worked
+a pulley on the shaft of the blower. The contrivance
+for dispensing with a crank, though
+its general appearance is recollected, the
+speaker cannot describe with any accuracy;
+nor is it important,&mdash;it came to nothing.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"In a patent case, tried many years
+afterwards, the boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine
+became, in some connection which has been
+forgotten, important as a piece of evidence.
+It was hunted for, and found among some
+old rubbish at Mount Clare. It was difficult
+to imagine that it had even generated
+steam enough to drive a coffee mill, much
+less that it had performed the feats here
+narrated."</p>
+
+<p>After this experimental demonstration,
+the Tom Thumb retired into honorable
+but obscure repose in its maker's warehouse
+at New York, from which it emerged, fifty
+years later, to take part in the centennial
+celebration of the beginning of the commercial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+history of Baltimore (that place having
+been made a port of entry in 1780). According
+to a contemporary report of the festival,
+"in the vast procession, Mr. Cooper and his
+little Tom Thumb locomotive were the two
+most conspicuous objects, and received all
+the honors which could be paid by a quarter
+of a million of enthusiastic people."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+<h2>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Peter Cooper's</span> acquaintance with the
+affairs of New York city ranged from the
+time when, as a child, he was taken by his
+mother to see the last remaining fragments
+of the stockade erected by the early inhabitants
+for protection against the Indians, to
+the full metropolitan glory of the decade of
+his death. This wonderful municipal history
+is too commonly regarded from a special
+standpoint, as if it were but the record of a
+continually renewed and often unsuccessful
+struggle against corrupt and incompetent
+city government. Contests of this kind,
+under democratic institutions, always occupy
+more space in the press, and make more
+noise in public oratory, than the quiet but
+steady progress of commercial undertakings,
+and the labors of unselfish citizens for education,
+art, and social improvement, which go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+on beneath the turbulent surface. Americans
+have long suffered under the unjust imputation
+of peculiar devotion to "the almighty
+dollar." The fact is that in no other country
+do individuals give so much or do so much
+without pecuniary reward&mdash;whether for
+personal friendship or for public spirit&mdash;as
+in the United States. The munificence of
+private benefactions and endowments, far
+surpassing the government support given in
+other nations to similar institutions, furnish
+an abundant proof of the first half of this
+proposition; while the other half is proved
+by the innumerable boards, committees, and
+other organized bodies, to which active business
+men give time and thought without remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>This spirit has never been wholly missed
+in public affairs, even in the city of New
+York, so often charged with the lack of it.
+All the great features of its municipal progress,
+even those which have been, at some
+stage, tainted with lamentable corruption,
+have been originated or supported by unselfish
+public spirit. It might even be said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+that without this support, innocently given
+and deceitfully misused, the schemers for
+private gain could not have achieved their
+periodical and temporary successes.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Cooper was an illustrious example
+of good citizenship in this respect. First
+elected to public office as "assistant alderman,"
+in 1828, he turned his attention immediately
+upon the subject most important
+to the growth and welfare of a city, yet
+most likely to be neglected until it is forced
+upon the community as an unwelcome necessity,&mdash;namely,
+the water supply. Up to
+that time, New York had depended upon
+the springs of Manhattan Island, some of
+which supplied water, conveyed through the
+streets by means of wooden pipes (bored
+logs), while most of them were utilized by
+means of pumps only, to which the inhabitants
+sent for their supply.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+<p>Mr. Cooper induced the water committee,
+of which he had been appointed a
+member, to visit Philadelphia and inspect
+the works by which the water of the Schuylkill
+was raised to a high reservoir, and
+thence distributed in iron pipes throughout
+that city, and then to examine the Croton
+and Bronx rivers, for the purpose of ascertaining
+what these streams could supply.
+The season being dry, the rivers were so low
+that Mr. Cooper was not satisfied of their
+capacity to furnish the needed quantity; so
+he investigated further, on his own account,
+the watershed (then a wilderness) of the
+Hackensack River in New Jersey, and subsequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+submitted to the board of aldermen
+plans and models, illustrating a scheme
+for the supply of water to New York from
+that region, by means of pipes laid under
+the North River.</p>
+
+<p>To the end of his life, Mr. Cooper adhered
+to his preference for this method of
+conveying water across river channels, as
+compared with elevated aqueducts, like the
+"high bridge" subsequently constructed
+across the Harlem River. And in this particular,
+his intuitive engineer's judgment was
+not at fault, although the classic example
+of the Romans, who spent untold labor
+and time in building aqueducts, where buried
+conduits would have been both cheaper
+and better, still dominated the professional
+world. But Peter Cooper furnished another
+example of his practical wisdom, by sacrificing
+his superior theory for the sake of the
+useful result contemplated. Thorough study
+showed that, although the Croton region
+could not be relied upon at all times for an
+immediately adequate water supply, yet its
+average through the year was sufficient for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+the purpose, so that the creation, by means
+of higher dams, of large storage reservoirs,
+would solve the pressing problem. This plan
+was ultimately adopted, and has been pursued
+with suitable enlargements, ever since.
+Peter Cooper was made chairman of the
+water committee,&mdash;a position which he
+retained until some years after the Croton
+system was completed.</p>
+
+<p>In the procurement of iron pipes for the
+system of distribution, and their proper testing
+before acceptance, his integrity and intelligence
+were specially effective in protecting
+the interests of the city, by securing the
+best material at the lowest cost. While Mr.
+Cooper was a strong "protectionist," favoring
+the encouragement of American industries,
+he never recognized any distinctions
+among Americans. In his patriotic thought,
+the unit to be regarded was not the city or
+the State of New York, but the United
+States of America; and he earnestly opposed
+the contention of the New York iron founders,
+that contracts for the pipe of the Croton
+system ought not to be made with inhabitants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+of another State. His arguments prevailed;
+and the pipe was ordered from a
+Philadelphia manufacturer, who offered a
+better article at a lower price.</p>
+
+<p>During Mr. Cooper's official service, and
+not without his active aid and advice (though
+his personal attention was mainly given to
+the water department), the beginnings of an
+organized police and fire service were established.
+When he was first elected to office
+the city was guarded by watchmen, who
+served four hours every night for seventy-five
+cents. Every householder was expected
+to have leathern buckets in his hall, and in
+case of an alarm of fire to throw them into
+the street, so that the citizens voluntarily
+running to the rescue could form a line to
+the nearest pump, and, passing the water by
+means of the buckets, supply the tank of the
+small hand-engine, which then squirted it
+upon the burning building. It is needless to
+detail here the steps by which out of this
+crude beginning the present effective New
+York Fire Department has been perfected.
+Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+promoted, and its future importance was
+foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his public-spirited
+colleagues.</p>
+
+<p>But a still more profoundly important
+element of municipal and national progress,
+in which the participation of Peter Cooper
+was active and influential, was the free
+public school system in New York. This
+system was originally planted by the great
+mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton, to
+whom the State is indebted for the Erie
+Canal, and for many other plans and impulses
+scarcely less significant. While Clinton
+was an advocate of universal suffrage,
+he perceived the danger of granting this
+power to an ignorant and largely foreign
+population; and in 1805 he secured a charter
+for "The Society for Establishing a
+Free School in the City of New York for
+the Education of Such Poor Children as do
+not Belong to, or are not Provided for by,
+Any Religious Society."</p>
+
+<p>The appeal of this society to "the affluent
+and charitable of every denomination of
+Christians" was liberally answered, and by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+December, 1809, a school capable of accommodating
+five hundred children had been
+erected upon a purchased site. This was
+the beginning in New York city of the free
+school system, over which for twenty-five
+years De Witt Clinton presided. During that
+period the schools, supported by generous
+private contributions, and also after a while
+by a state tax, steadily increased in number,
+efficiency, and public favor. Peter Cooper
+had been always a zealous supporter of these
+schools, but not until 1838 did he become&mdash;by
+election as a trustee of the Free
+School Society&mdash;officially connected with
+them. It was a critical period in their history.
+The original national debt of the
+Union had been recently extinguished, and
+a considerable surplus had been returned to
+the contributing States, of which New York
+devoted its share to educational purposes,
+thus largely increasing the fund for the city.
+In 1822, sixteen years before, the common
+council had made the free schools "unsectarian,"
+excluding from the benefits of the
+fund all institutions of denominational character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+The various sects had submitted reluctantly
+to this decision so long as the fund
+was too small to be divided among them;
+but its sudden enlargement encouraged an
+attempt to secure appropriations for parochial
+schools.</p>
+
+<p>In his first annual message Governor
+Seward recommended to the legislature the
+establishment of schools in which the children
+of foreigners might be "instructed by
+teachers speaking the same language with
+themselves and professing the same faith."
+The Roman Catholic community, acting at
+once upon this suggestion, sent a deputation
+to the New York common council demanding
+for their schools "a pro rata share" of
+the educational fund, to which as taxpayers
+they contributed.</p>
+
+<p>In the resistance made to this claim by
+the Free School Society Mr. Cooper took a
+prominent and ardent part. The advocates
+of unsectarian public schools were victorious;
+but the controversy continued to agitate the
+State until the passage by the legislature in
+1842 of an act establishing in New York<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+city a new board of education to control
+the schools supported from the funds of the
+State, and at the same time forbidding the
+support from this fund of schools in which
+"any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet
+shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced."
+The Free School Society, resenting and distrusting
+this new (and in some respects
+complicated) arrangement, continued its
+separate activity for eleven years; but in
+1853, the unsectarian character of the public
+schools of New York having been established
+beyond question, the society and
+the board of education were by common
+consent amalgamated by statute. At the
+final meeting of the society Peter Cooper
+delivered the valedictory address, the language
+of which indicates that not without
+apprehension did he contemplate the surrender
+of the public schools to the exclusive
+control of a body of officials likely to be
+more or less influenced by partisan or political
+considerations.</p>
+
+<p>Yet his characteristic common sense came
+again in this instance to the front. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+moral which he drew from his doubts and
+fears was that "the stewardship we are about
+to resign is not a reprieve from the responsibilities
+of the future." And in obedience to
+this conviction he accepted, with fourteen of
+his old colleagues, membership in the board
+of education, of which he served for two years
+as vice-president, resigning in January, 1855,
+at which time he had formed and begun to
+carry out the great plan of an institution for
+free popular education with which his name
+is now forever associated.</p>
+
+<p>Many years later Mr. Cooper became the
+president of the Citizens' Association of
+New York, which he supported with untiring
+enthusiasm and lavish expenditure, and which
+in its day did good work in securing for the
+city an efficient fire department, boards of
+health, docks, and education, and an improved
+charter. Mr. Cooper retired in 1873,
+and the association died soon after, to be
+revived in other organizations, which have
+from time to time continued the perennial
+battle for good government in New York
+begun by him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+<h2>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> many respects the industrial conditions
+under which Peter Cooper began his career
+had been revolutionized before he finished
+it. The apprentice system has well-nigh
+passed away; and the old freedom with
+which an intelligent, industrious, and ambitious
+young man could turn from one occupation
+to another, seeking that road which
+offered greatest promise of preferment, is
+greatly hampered by the modern regime of
+"organized labor," which, whatever its advantages,
+presents its own peculiar perils
+for the workingman. But it remains forever
+true that under either of these systems,
+or any others that can be evolved or invented,
+knowledge is power, and the bestowal of it
+is the one gift which neither pauperizes the
+recipient nor injures the community.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As a struggling young apprentice, Peter
+Cooper regarded with intense sympathy the
+needs and limitations of the class to which
+he belonged. But his notion of a remedy
+was not that of paternal legislation, or belligerent
+organization, or social reconstruction.
+To his conception the atmosphere of
+personal liberty and responsibility furnished
+by the new democratic republic, offering free
+scope to individual endeavor and rewarding
+individual merit, was the best that could be
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>What he dreamed of doing was simply to
+assist these social conditions by providing
+for those who were handicapped by circumstances
+the means of power and opportunity,
+to be utilized by their own assiduity.
+This plan included not only what he then
+thought to be the most effective system
+for intellectual improvement, but also provision
+for such innocent entertainment as
+would supersede the grosser forms of recreation,
+which involved the waste of money and
+health.</p>
+
+<p>Walking up the Bowery Road&mdash;then the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+stage route to Boston, but now a crowded
+down-town street&mdash;he selected in the suburbs
+of the city the site for his great institution;
+and, as he accumulated the necessary
+funds, he bought at intervals lot after lot at
+the intersection of Third and Fourth Avenues,
+until he had acquired the entire block,
+paying for his latest purchases (made after
+the neighborhood had been solidly built up
+and had become a centre of business) very
+high prices compared with those he had paid
+at the beginning. At last (in 1854) he
+commenced the erection of a six-story fire-proof
+building of stone, brick, and iron. This
+work occupied several years, and during its
+progress a period of great financial distress
+threatened to interrupt it. But he persisted
+in the undertaking, at great risk to his private
+business; and the building was finished at a
+cost (including that of the land) of more
+than six hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
+Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper,
+together with the legacy provided by his
+will, and doubled by his heirs, and still later
+donations from his family and immediate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+relatives, make up a total of more than
+double that amount.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+<p>Up to the time when the building was
+completed Mr. Cooper had taken little advice
+as to the details of his project. Its outlines
+in his mind were those which he had conceived
+a quarter-century before, and though
+he was doubtless conscious that new social
+and industrial conditions had intervened
+which would require some modifications of
+his plan, he had not formulated such changes.</p>
+
+<p>The classes which he wished especially
+to reach were those who, being already engaged
+in earning a living by labor, could
+scarcely be expected to take regular courses
+in instruction; and the idea of such instruction
+appears to have been at the beginning
+subordinate in his mind. He had a strong
+impression that young mechanics and apprentices,
+instead of wasting their time in
+dissipation, should improve their minds during
+the intervals of labor; and not unnaturally
+his first thought as to the means of
+such improvement turned to those things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+which had aroused and stimulated his own
+mind. Probably he did not realize that the
+mass of men were not like himself, and that
+something more than mere suggestion or opportunity
+would be required to develop the
+mental powers and enlarge the knowledge of
+the average workingman. However that
+may be, the original vague design of Mr.
+Cooper was something like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>There was in the city of New York a
+famous collection of curiosities known as
+Scudder's Museum. Barnum's Museum
+afterwards took its place; but that, too, has
+long since disappeared; and the small so-called
+museums now scattered through the
+city but faintly remind old inhabitants of
+the glories of Scudder's or Barnum's in their
+prime. These establishments contained all
+sorts of curiosities, arranged without much
+reference to scientific use,&mdash;wax-works, historical
+relics, dwarfs, giants, living and
+stuffed animals, etc. There was also a
+lecture-room, devoted principally to moral
+melodrama; and on an upper floor a large
+room was occupied by the cosmorama,&mdash;an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+exhibition of pictures, usually of noteworthy
+scenery, foreign cities, etc., which
+were looked at through round holes, enhancing
+the effect of their illumination.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Cooper doubtless often lingered in
+these museums, receiving the inspiration
+which came from visions of a world much
+wider than his individual horizon, from the
+curious and wonderful works of nature, and
+from the works of man in former times and
+in foreign lands. From the queer mechanical
+devices exhibited by inventors to the
+"Happy Family" and the cosmorama, everything
+was full to his quick sympathy of intellectual,
+moral, or sentimental suggestion;
+and no doubt he felt, after an hour of such
+combined wonder and reflection, a satisfying
+sense of time well spent.</p>
+
+<p>He wished that this means of mental improvement
+and recreation combined might
+be freely afforded to those whose scanty
+earnings would not permit them otherwise to
+make frequent use of it, and he resolved
+that the museum and the cosmorama should
+be included in his institution.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another agency of which Mr. Cooper had
+made fruitful use, and the efficacy of which
+he highly appreciated, was conversation and
+debate. If people could be brought together
+and made to talk he thought they would
+learn a great deal from each other. In this
+he had undoubtedly grasped one of the great
+principles of progress. To meet and interchange
+our ideas of books and by personal
+discussions is indeed the mightiest factor of
+modern improvement. But the mere meeting
+to talk <i>about</i> things unless it is combined
+with the disposition and the apparatus
+for <i>studying</i> things is but barter without
+production, and may degenerate to a barren
+exchange of words, as unprofitable as that
+described in the Yankee proverb, "swapping
+jackknives in a garret." This aspect of the
+truth Mr. Cooper doubtless came to appreciate;
+but at the outset, habituated as he
+was to get ideas from everybody he met and
+everything he saw, it seemed to him that
+free discussions would be an unmixed benefit
+to all, and he resolved that his institution
+should contain rooms, devoted to the several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+handicrafts, where the practitioners of each
+could meet and "exchange views."</p>
+
+<p>It was also his intention that the lower
+part of the building he erected should be occupied
+by stores and offices, the annual rent of
+which should pay the running expenses of the
+institution. In the course of time the Cooper
+Union came to need for full efficiency both
+more money than this source would supply
+and more room than was left to it after subtracting
+the rooms thus rented. These needs
+have now been met in some measure by further
+endowments, so that before long the
+whole building will be devoted to educational
+uses. But the wisdom, at that time, of Mr.
+Cooper's plan has been vindicated by the
+great work done with the modest means
+thus provided.</p>
+
+<p>The building of the Cooper Union represented
+his original ideas. Above the shops
+and offices to be rented was an immense
+room intended for the museum. A large
+part of the building was cut up into small
+meeting-rooms for the conferences of the
+trades; in an upper story another great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+room was provided for the cosmorama; and
+the flat roof was to be safely inclosed with a
+balustrade, so that on pleasant days or evenings
+the frequenters of the institution might
+sit or promenade there, partake of harmless
+refreshments, listen to agreeable music,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and
+enjoy the magnificent prospect of the city
+below,&mdash;the heights beyond the East River
+on one side, the Hudson on the other, and
+the magnificent island-studded harbor.</p>
+
+<p>A noteworthy feature of this scheme was
+the complete obliteration of all distinctions
+of class, creed, race, or sex among its beneficiaries.
+It is a significant fact that through
+nearly half a century, while these distinctions
+have been the subjects of vehement and sometimes
+bitter social and political discussion, the
+Cooper Union has gone quietly on educating
+its thousands of pupils without the least embarrassment
+in its discipline, and apparently
+without even the consciousness on the part
+of its founder or its trustees that in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+perfect solution of what was supposed to be
+a difficult problem they had accomplished
+anything extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Cooper, consulting with wise
+and practical advisers, addressed himself at
+last to the final arrangement of details, he
+surrendered one after another many parts of
+his youthful design. The name, "The Cooper
+Union for the Advancement of Science and
+Art," epitomized this change. His primary
+purpose was unchanged; but he perceived
+that systematic education would be of more
+value to the class he sought to aid than mere
+amusement or miscellaneous talk. The great
+free reading-room of the Cooper Union was
+substituted for the museum; the conversation
+parlors for the various trades became
+class-rooms for instruction; the cosmorama
+yielded to lecture-halls and laboratories; and
+the roof was abandoned to the weather. To
+all these changes, and to many other novelties
+adopted afterwards, Mr. Cooper was
+reconciled by one conclusive argument;
+namely, the proof afforded by their results
+that the Cooper Union was giving to the working<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+classes that which they needed most and
+most desired. Now and then perhaps a sigh
+might escape him for the dream of his youth.
+I remember one occasion when I accompanied
+him to the roof of the building, where
+some new construction was going on which
+he wished to inspect. The old man stood
+for some time admiring the view in all directions,
+and at last, recalling how he had once
+imagined happy crowds enjoying the delights
+of that "roof-garden," and casting a mournful
+glance at the central spot where the band
+was to have been, he said, "Sometimes I
+think my first plan was the best!"<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> But
+such regrets did not occupy his mind. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+was satisfied to know that the institution he
+had founded, building better than he knew,
+had proved its fitness by its success in the
+eager and grateful use made of it by those
+for whose benefit it was intended and in the
+actual evidences of such benefit. Every year
+managers of the different departments took
+pains to report to him instances in which
+students already earning wages had increased
+their earnings through the added knowledge
+or skill acquired in the evening classes; and
+this was the feature of the annual statements
+upon which he dwelt with the greatest satisfaction.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+<p>The charter of the Cooper Union was
+finally adopted in its present form by the
+legislature of the State of New York,
+April 13, 1859; and the deed of trust, executed
+in compliance therewith, on the 29th
+day of the same month, by Peter Cooper
+and his wife, Sarah, conveyed to the board
+of trustees the title to "all that piece and
+parcel of land bounded on the west by
+Fourth Avenue, on the north by Astor
+Place, on the east by Third Avenue, and on
+the south by Seventh Street, .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. to be forever
+devoted to the advancement of science
+and art, in their application to the varied and
+useful purposes of life."</p>
+
+<p>Even through this dry legal phraseology,
+it is not difficult to discern the frank and
+simple joy of the patient enthusiast, who
+was at last able to speak of the land which
+he had laboriously acquired, lot by lot,
+through many years, and the building which
+he had raised, stone by stone, through many
+more, as <i>one</i> "piece or parcel," his to dedicate
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>The delivery of this deed to the board of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+trustees was accompanied with a long letter,
+setting forth the wishes, hopes, and plans
+of the grantor, in the formal and diffuse
+rhetoric peculiar to his generation, and, perhaps,
+too much contemned by ours. To say
+the least, we are no more warranted in despising
+the utterances of noble, self-sacrificing
+philanthropists, because they are clothed in
+phrases now deemed verbose and stilted,
+than we would be in disparaging the deeds
+of historic heroes, because they wore armor
+now antiquated and struck their doughty
+blows with weapons obsolete. When Peter
+Cooper wrote, in the letter now before me,
+"The great object I desire to accomplish by
+the establishment of an institution devoted
+to the advancement of science and art is to
+open the volume of nature by the light of
+truth&mdash;so unveiling the laws and methods
+of Deity that the young may see the beauties
+of creation, enjoy its blessings, and learn to
+love the Being 'from whom cometh every
+good and perfect gift,'"&mdash;he was not guilty
+of cant, because cant is the use of language
+expressing an emotion which the user does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+not really feel. And the same may be said of
+the elaborate additional exposition, contained
+in this letter, of the writer's faith in God and
+man, and of his confident hope in the future
+of his race, and particularly of his country.</p>
+
+<p>The letter shows some traces still of his
+original plan. Thus, he writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In order most effectually to aid and
+encourage the efforts of youth to obtain useful
+knowledge, I have provided the main
+floor of the large hall on the third story for
+a reading-room, literary exchange, and scientific
+collections&mdash;the walls around that floor
+to be arranged for the reception of books,
+maps, paintings, and other objects of interest.
+And when a sufficient collection of the works
+of art, science, and nature can be obtained,
+I propose that glass cases shall be arranged
+around the walls of the gallery of the said
+room, forming alcoves around the entire
+floor for the preservation of the same. In
+the window spaces I propose to arrange such
+cosmoramic and other views as will exhibit
+in the clearest and most forcible light the
+true philosophy of life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Other characteristic paragraphs are here
+quoted,&mdash;the whole letter being too long
+for full republication.</p>
+
+<p>"To manifest the deep interest and sympathy
+I feel in all that can advance the happiness
+and better the condition of the female
+portion of the community, and especially of
+those who are dependent on honest labor for
+support, I desire the trustees to appropriate
+two hundred and fifty dollars yearly to assist
+such pupils of the female school of design
+as shall, in their careful judgment, by their
+efforts and sacrifices in the performance of
+duty to parents or to those that Providence
+has made dependent on them for support,
+merit and require such aid. My reason for
+this requirement is not so much to reward
+as to encourage the exercise of heroic virtues
+that often shine in the midst of the
+greatest suffering and obscurity without so
+much as being noticed by the passing
+throng.</p>
+
+<p>"In order to better the condition of women
+and to widen the sphere of female employment,
+I have provided seven rooms to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+be forever devoted to a female school of
+design, and I desire the trustees to appropriate
+out of the rents of the building fifteen
+hundred dollars annually towards meeting
+the expenses of said school.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the ardent wish of my heart that
+this school of design may be the means of
+raising to competence and comfort thousands
+of those that might otherwise struggle
+through a life of poverty and suffering.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"Desiring, as I do, to use every means to
+render this institution useful through all
+coming time, and believing that editors of
+the public press have it in their power to
+exert a greater influence on the community
+for good than any other class of men of
+equal number, it is therefore my sincere
+desire that editors be earnestly invited to
+become members of the society of arts to
+be connected with this institution.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my desire, also, that the students
+shall have the use of one of the large rooms
+(to be assigned by the trustees) for the purpose
+of useful debates. I desire and deem
+it best to direct that all these lectures and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+debates shall be exclusive of theological and
+party questions, and shall have for their
+constant object the causes that operate
+around and within us, and the means necessary
+and most appropriate to remove the
+physical and moral evils that afflict our city,
+our country, and humanity." .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Other paragraphs indicate his plan that
+the students shall, in the first instance, frame
+the rules which shall control the discipline
+of the institution. Thus he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is my desire, and I hereby ordain,
+that a strict conformity to rules deliberately
+formed by a vote of the majority of the
+students, and approved by the trustees, shall
+forever be an indispensable requisite for
+continuing to enjoy the benefits of this institution.
+I now most earnestly entreat each
+and every one of the students of this institution,
+through all coming time, to whom I
+have intrusted this great responsibility of
+framing laws for the regulation of their conduct
+in their connection with the institution,
+and by which any of the members may lose
+its privileges, to remember how frail we are,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+and how liable to err when we come to sit
+in judgment on the faults of others, and
+how much the circumstances of our birth,
+our education, and the society and country
+where we have been born and brought up,
+have had to do in forming us and making us
+what we are."</p>
+
+<p>In this scheme Mr. Cooper anticipated
+the plan of self-government now followed in
+some of our colleges; and while he expected
+too much of the students of the
+Cooper Union, and was himself afterwards
+obliged to consent to the restriction of their
+autonomy, it may be fairly said that the
+spirit of his hope and exhortation has never
+ceased to be felt; and, to the great honor
+of the Cooper Union, it may be recorded
+that questions of discipline have been well-nigh
+unknown within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>This noble trust was accepted by a body
+of men who have discharged it with unwearied
+fidelity, zeal and wisdom. The
+original board consisted of Mr. Cooper, his
+son Edward Cooper, his son-in-law Abram
+S. Hewitt, and John E. Parsons, Wilson G.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+Hunt, and Daniel F. Tiemann. Three of
+these, Messrs. Cooper, Hewitt, and Tiemann,
+have been mayors of the city of New York.
+All of them were well-known and eminent
+citizens, burdened with the duties of active
+business; and the time they gave so freely
+to the management of the Cooper Union was
+not the superfluity of leisure. The difficulty
+with "business men" too often is, that,
+when nominally charged with the administration
+of organized charities, they slight
+the work because they have not time to attend
+to it. But the United States can show
+not a few instances in which the affairs of
+religious, educational, or benevolent institutions
+are carefully managed by the active
+directors of great private enterprises; and
+their management, when it is thus thorough,
+is generally much better than that of literary
+or philanthropic amateurs. This is conspicuously
+shown in the history of the Cooper
+Union.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<p>This is not the place for a detailed account
+of the development of the Cooper
+Union, or even of its present scope and prospective
+operations. Such an account would
+worthily occupy a separate volume; for the
+institution, in the hands of its wise directors,
+was a pioneer and model in many respects
+in which later enterprises, with larger
+means, have, perhaps, surpassed it. I must
+content myself here with brief mention of a
+few particulars.</p>
+
+<p>The immense free reading-room, with its
+average daily attendance of nearly 1500 to
+2000 persons, was Mr. Cooper's special
+delight; and well it might be so; for the
+sight is one almost without a parallel&mdash;not
+in the architecture, size, or furnishing of the
+place, but in the extent and constancy of its
+use by the public. Entrance is free to all
+who are not unclean, intoxicated, or disorderly.
+In the main, the privileges thus given
+are not abused, but occasionally the evils almost
+inseparable from so large an attendance
+have been felt. At one time, the curator
+earnestly represented to the trustees the necessity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+of doing something to check the mutilation
+of books&mdash;a practice which public
+librarians know well as one of their most
+troublesome foes. It appeared that some
+unknown persons, who combined a love of
+the beautiful in language with a barbaric
+ignorance of it in conduct, were accustomed
+to slash out with their penknives favorite
+passages of poetry for preservation, treating
+in this matter newspapers and books alike.
+It was found difficult to keep whole the volumes
+of Tennyson and Longfellow. But a
+more frequent and injurious practice was
+the cutting out of plates from illustrated
+books. This was not for love of art, as the
+other for love of poetry. The object was to
+sell such engravings for two or three cents
+each to the print-shops in the city, where
+they were bought by refined amateurs, for
+the purpose of "illustrating" special volumes.
+This fashionable hobby has been the
+indirect cause of the ruin of many a choice
+book; and buyers of fine old editions are well
+aware that they must look well to their bargains,
+lest they find that the thief, at the bidding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+of the "collector," has plundered the volumes
+of the plates which once adorned them.</p>
+
+<p>When this subject came up for discussion
+in the board of trustees, Mr. Cooper was
+so full of pity for the poor fellows, who
+were obliged to sell stolen engravings at
+two cents a piece to keep body and soul
+together, that he could scarcely be brought
+to take a severe view of the offense. Nor
+was he willing (and in this his fellow-trustees
+agreed with him) to impose any restriction
+or censorship upon admittance to the
+reading-room. Even if the books suffered,
+the room must continue to be free. The
+great mass of well-behaved people must not
+be annoyed by measures intended to exclude
+a few rogues. The result vindicated the
+sagacity, as well as the charity, of this view.
+The officers in charge, not being permitted
+to adopt any sweeping measures of prevention,
+simply redoubled their vigilance, and
+finally caught one or two offenders and
+"made examples of them;" and the nuisance
+was immediately abated, though perhaps not
+entirely and permanently abolished.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The report of 1900, after mentioning the
+great (legitimate) wear and tear of the
+books, of which 12,000 had to be re-bound,
+adds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The decorum of the visitors has been
+excellent, and it is remarkable, in view of
+such a very large number of persons visiting
+the room, that so few mutilations and
+injuries occur to the periodicals and books,
+and that so few books, probably not more
+than half a dozen in the course of a year,
+and those of small consequence, are stolen."</p>
+
+<p>It seems then, after all, that Peter Cooper's
+faith in the people was justified.</p>
+
+<p>The great hall in the basement is another
+noteworthy feature, and worthy of
+wider imitation than it has yet received.
+Such a hall, if located upstairs in such a
+building, would have been open to three objections:
+it would have monopolized, for occasional
+use only, space which was required
+for constant use; it would have been intolerably
+noisy, by reason of the roar and rattle
+in the streets which surround the building
+on all sides; and it would have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+dangerous, as all such places are, when great
+audiences must make their exit by going
+down stairs. Nothing has ever been invented
+that will prevent people from being
+crushed and trampled when they are crowding
+down a stairway. In all these respects,
+the great hall of the Cooper Union is admirable.
+It occupies space not otherwise valuable.
+It is quiet, and acoustically perfect.
+The means of exit and entrance are ample
+and safe. Even in case of an unreasoning
+panic, there is little danger that a crowd,
+tumbling up the stone stairways to the
+street, would cause the horrible maiming
+and killing which so often attend the efforts
+of a frightened multitude to get down. Finally,
+the ventilation is excellent, for the
+simple reason that natural or automatic ventilation
+of such a large, low basement room
+could not be expected, and consequently
+mechanical ventilation by means of a large
+fan, run by steam power, was provided. The
+efficiency of this system has sometimes been
+severely tested. On one occasion, during
+a scientific lecture, the experimental illustrations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+of which were on a large and imposing
+scale, the learned professor on the platform
+had the misfortune to crack an immense
+glass jar, in which he was exhibiting the
+brilliant combustion of phosphorus in oxygen
+gas. The white fumes of phosphorous
+acid floated out into the air, and began to
+diffuse themselves through the hall towards
+the ventilation outlets at the sides and rear.
+To one who knew the irritating nature of
+these fumes it seemed inevitable that the
+hall must be emptied of its crowded audience
+in a few minutes. Already coughing
+had begun on the front seats, when Mr.
+Hewitt, who was seated on the platform,
+quickly rose, and pulling a cord, reversed
+the currents of ventilation and opened a
+new outlet into the street, behind and above
+the platform. The curling clouds of vapor
+paused, wheeled, and retreated, and in another
+minute the air was perfectly pure.
+The lecturer had not even been interrupted.
+It was a beautiful and timely "experiment"
+not on the programme, and, to use the words
+of one who was present, "It was just the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+sort of thing to please Peter Cooper to the
+bottom of his soul."</p>
+
+<p>The great hall was dedicated from the
+beginning to free speech. Peter Cooper
+may have overestimated the value of mere
+talk. As I have already told, it was his
+first notion that conversation and discussion
+were the chief things required in education.
+He came to see that study, instruction, and
+training were equally essential, but he never
+surrendered his faith in free speech; and
+the great hall was at the service of all sects,
+parties, and classes, religious, philosophical,
+political, scientific, literary, or philanthropic.
+It has been the scene of many memorable
+meetings and addresses. But nothing in its
+history has been more useful and noteworthy
+than the series of free popular lectures which
+were given, as part of the operations of the
+Cooper Union, within its walls. These lectures
+began in 1868, and continued until
+they were adopted by the city as part of the
+general scheme of free lectures which has
+been so successful during the last few years.
+In awarding due praise to the promoters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+and managers of this plan, it should not be
+forgotten that the Cooper Union inaugurated
+it, and maintained it for many years, during
+which the free Saturday night popular
+lectures in its great hall were the only ones
+of their kind. They covered many sciences
+and arts, chronicles of travel and themes of
+history and literature. The most eminent
+authors, teachers, investigators, travelers,
+and orators of the generation were comprised
+in the list of lecturers; and many of them
+performed this service without other reward
+than the consciousness of contributing to a
+noble charity, and the evident gratitude of
+the vast and eagerly attentive audience.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper loved to attend these Saturday
+evening lectures, and an arm-chair was
+always ready for him on the platform.
+Many a speaker on that platform has been
+surprised by an untimely outburst of applause
+and has turned to discover the cause in the
+entrance of the beloved founder. Often
+the subject of the evening was beyond his
+experience or knowledge, but that made no
+difference in his respectful attention, or in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+the benign satisfaction with which he contemplated
+the attentive audience, and realized
+that they were receiving benefit. I have
+often felt that the scene exhibited almost
+every Saturday night for many years during
+the latest period of his life could be equaled
+only by the spectacle presented at Ephesus,
+where the aged St. John the Divine fronted
+the congregation of loving believers, always
+with his one last message, "Little children,
+love one another."</p>
+
+<p>But sometimes the old man would be intensely
+interested and aroused by the lecture.
+I remember such an occasion, when I was myself
+the lecturer, and had been laying down,
+with due scientific decorum and diagrams, the
+"law of storms." At the close of the lecture,
+Mr. Cooper arose, advanced to the
+front, and gave a vivid and animated description
+of a whirlwind which he had witnessed
+some seventy years before, which was
+received with rapt attention and tremendous
+applause. The lecture was undoubtedly
+eclipsed in interest by this unexpected
+after-piece; but the lecturer was amply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+compensated by his triumph in having thus
+stirred the spirit and aroused the recollections
+of the dear old founder.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the various schools and
+classes of the Cooper Union, it must suffice
+to say briefly that under the elastic and
+comprehensive plan of the deed of trust,
+two objects were constantly kept in view by
+the trustees. In the first place, a complete
+four years' course was always maintained,
+for the benefit of those who could afford the
+time and who felt the need of such training.
+In the second place, classes were instituted
+in such special departments as were most
+likely to be useful and most evidently in demand;
+and with regard to these the demand
+and the evidence of usefulness were followed
+as guides in determining the extent of the
+facilities offered, up to the capacity and
+means of the institution.</p>
+
+<p>De Morgan, in his "Budget of Paradoxes,"
+tells of an old fellow who, wishing
+to have a chair that would fit him perfectly,
+sat for a while on a mass of shoemaker's
+wax, which he then carried to a worker in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+wood, and instructed him to "make a seat
+like that!" This homely illustration indicates
+the manner in which the special classes
+of the Cooper Union have been established,
+enlarged, and regulated, to meet the evident
+demands of its constituency. It is
+pleasant to know that the future means and
+sphere of the institution will be enlarged
+under the same wise management.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+<h2>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>NATIONAL POLITICS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Peter Cooper's</span> prominent activity in
+national politics belongs to two periods,&mdash;that
+of the war for the Union, and that of
+the subsequent controversies over questions
+of financial policy.</p>
+
+<p>As has been explained, he felt his life to be
+peculiarly identified with that of the nation
+born with him; and the idea that this nation
+should be destroyed in the midst of its triumphant
+progress was profoundly abhorrent
+to him. Like many other patriots, he was
+ready to save the Union by a compromise, if
+that were practicable. He advocated the
+purchase and liberation by the government
+of all the slaves in the United States; he
+promoted a "peace conference" on the very
+eve of the war. But when South Carolina
+had formally seceded and the gauntlet had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+been cast at the feet of national authority, his
+course was not uncertain. He was a representative
+of the New York Chamber of Commerce
+in the deputation of thirty leading
+citizens of New York which visited Washington
+in order to discover what plan Mr.
+Buchanan (then still President) had in
+view. They got no satisfaction from the
+President, but assured themselves of the
+firm loyalty of Mr. Seward, then Senator
+from New York.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks later the bombardment of
+Fort Sumter put an end to all projects of
+compromise. At the memorable mass meeting
+held in Union Square, New York, shortly
+after the receipt of this news, Peter Cooper,
+then seventy years old, was among the first
+to mount the platform. His familiar white
+hairs and kindly face were recognized by the
+crowd, which vociferously called for a speech
+from him. Stepping to the front, he uttered
+a few ringing sentences which sounded the
+keynote of the meeting. I quote but one or
+two:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are contending with an enemy not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+only determined on our destruction as a nation,
+but to build on our ruins a government
+devoted with all its power to maintain, extend,
+and perpetuate a system in itself revolting
+to all the best feelings of humanity,&mdash;an
+institution that enables thousands to
+sell their own children into hopeless bondage.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall it succeed? You say 'No!' and
+I unite with you in your decision. We cannot
+allow it to succeed. We should spend
+our lives, our property, and leave the land
+itself a desolation before such an institution
+should triumph over the free people of this
+country.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us, therefore, unite to sustain the
+government by every means in our power, to
+arm and equip in the shortest possible time
+an army of the best men that can be found
+in the country."</p>
+
+<p>From that day on his patriotism never
+doubted or faltered. When the war loan
+was announced he was the first man at the
+door of the subtreasury in New York waiting
+to make payment over the counter of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+all the money he had been able to collect
+without business disaster. "In those days,"
+says a friend, "whenever he had nothing
+else to do, he would go down to the recruiting
+office and put in a substitute." It is
+estimated that he must have sent, first and
+last, about a score of soldiers to serve for him
+under the flag.</p>
+
+<p>From the first he urged the emancipation
+and enlistment of the Southern negroes,&mdash;a
+policy which was ultimately adopted with
+successful results; and when in 1864, at the
+darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger
+of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted
+that great mass meeting in the hall of
+the Cooper Union which marked the turning-point
+of the struggle, carried the State of
+New York for Lincoln, and secured the triumph
+of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>After the war was over he presided at another
+meeting, called to favor aid to the disabled
+soldiers of the nation; and the following
+paragraph quoted from his remarks on that
+occasion forms a fitting close to this brief
+notice of his patriotic activity:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If we required a stronger stimulus to
+urge us to perform our duty, we have only
+to turn our thoughts back to that fearful
+day when the armies of rebellion had entered
+Pennsylvania with the intent to subjugate
+the North to their domination. Had they
+been successful, they would have gloried in
+making us pay for the loss of their slaves
+and the expenses of their war. I trust that
+the government will not hesitate to tax my
+property and the property of every other
+man enough to provide for the comfort of
+our disabled soldiers and the families dependent
+on them for support."</p>
+
+<p>In the financial controversies which accompanied
+and followed the period of "reconstruction"
+after the war, and were involved
+in the payment and adjustment of the national
+debt, Mr. Cooper appeared as an advocate
+of the "Greenback" party, and did
+not seem to realize that this was a complete
+reversal of his earlier position as a "hard-money"
+Democrat. I think the clue to this
+change may be found in his recollection of
+the war waged by Andrew Jackson on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+United States Bank, and a vague feeling
+that the national banking system instituted
+by Secretary Chase was open to similar objections.
+To this may be added his growing
+inclination in favor of "paternal government,"&mdash;which
+in a man so thoroughly
+self-supporting and self-reliant can be explained
+only by the fact that his personal
+philanthropy overbalanced his political philosophy;
+that he became more anxious to
+relieve the distress he saw than to question
+the wisdom of measures taken for that purpose.
+Two things are certain: first, that
+Mr. Cooper's motives in his later political
+course were thoroughly pure and unselfish;
+and secondly, that his utterances and publications
+in this connection show him to be
+dealing with subjects which he did not understand.
+This statement is made without
+regard to the merits of the controversy, or
+the strength of the arguments contributed
+to it by others. The simple truth is that
+Mr. Cooper was too old to make original
+investigation of such questions, intelligently
+weighing all the modern conditions of industry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+and commerce, in which he was no longer
+an active participant. He accepted in 1876
+the nomination of the Greenback party for
+the presidency; but the issue was already
+practically dead, and he received but 81,740
+votes out of a total of 8,412,833 cast. Undaunted
+by this defeat, he continued to utter
+his views. Those who wish to study them
+in detail may consult the volume "Ideas for
+a Science of Good Government in Addresses,
+Letters, and Articles on a Strictly National
+Currency, Tariff, and Civil Service," which
+he issued at the age of ninety-two, in the
+last year of his life. His own summary of
+his position, given on page 212 of this book,
+shows that he desired a national legal-tender
+paper currency, irredeemable in coin, but
+"interconvertible" with government bonds,
+and regulated by law as to volume per capita;
+a "discriminating" protective tariff, "helpful
+to all the industries of the country, where
+the raw material and the labor can be furnished
+by our own people;" and a civil service
+divorced from party politics, based on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+personal fitness, with tenure of office during
+good behavior, moderate salaries, and pensions
+for the aged and sick, and provision
+for widows and orphans.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1874, at the age of eighty-three, Mr.
+Cooper said at a reception given in his
+honor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When I was born, New York contained
+27,000 inhabitants. The upper limits of the
+city were at Chambers Street. Not a single
+free school, either by day or night, existed.
+General Washington had just entered upon
+his first term as President of the United States,
+the whole annual expenditures of which did not
+exceed $2,500,000, being about sixty cents
+per head of the population. Not a single
+steam engine had yet been built or erected
+on the American continent; and the people
+were clad in homespun, and were characterized
+by the simple virtues and habits which
+are usually associated with that primitive
+garb. I need not tell you what the country
+now is, and what the habits and the garments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+of its people now are, or that the
+expenditure, per capita, of the general government
+has increased fifteen-fold. But I
+have witnessed and taken a deep interest in
+every step of the marvellous development
+and progress which have characterized this
+century beyond all the centuries which have
+gone before.</p>
+
+<p>"Measured by the achievements of the
+years I have seen, I am one of the oldest
+men who have ever lived; but I do not feel
+old, and I propose to give you the receipt
+by which I have preserved my youth.</p>
+
+<p>"I have always given a friendly welcome to
+new ideas, and I have endeavored not to feel
+too old to learn; and thus, though I stand
+here with the snows of so many winters
+upon my head, my faith in human nature,
+my belief in the progress of man to a better
+social condition, and especially my trust in
+the ability of men to establish and maintain
+self-government, are as fresh and as young
+as when I began to travel the path of life.</p>
+
+<p>"While I have always recognized that the
+object of business is to make money in an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+honorable manner, I have endeavored to
+remember that the object of life is to do
+good. Hence I have been ready to engage
+in all new enterprises, and, without incurring
+debt, to risk in their promotion the
+means which I had acquired, provided they
+seemed to me calculated to advance the general
+good. This will account for my early
+attempt to perfect the steam engine, for my
+attempt to construct the first American
+locomotive, for my connection with the telegraph
+in a course of efforts to unite our
+country with the European world, and for
+my recent efforts to solve the problem of
+economical steam navigation on the canals;
+to all of which you have so kindly referred.
+It happens to but few men to change the
+current of human progress, as it did to Watt,
+to Fulton, to Stephenson, and to Morse; but
+most men may be ready to welcome laborers
+to a new field of usefulness, and to clear the
+road for their progress.</p>
+
+<p>"This I have tried to do, as well in the
+perfecting and execution of their ideas as in
+making such provision as my means have permitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+for the proper education of the young
+mechanics and citizens of my native city, in
+order to fit them for the reception of new
+ideas, social, mechanical, and scientific&mdash;hoping
+thus to economize and expand the
+intellectual as well as the physical forces,
+and provide a larger fund for distribution
+among the various classes which necessarily
+make up the total of society. If our lives
+shall be such that we shall receive the glad
+welcome of 'Well done, good and faithful
+servant,' we shall then know that we have
+not lived in vain."</p>
+
+<p>For nine years after this utterance he
+continued the peaceful and happy life which
+it describes. When the end came, it was
+quiet and painless. Surrounded by his children
+and grandchildren, and whispering
+with almost his last breath the desire for an
+increase of his bequest to that other well-beloved
+child, the Cooper Union, he "fell on
+sleep," April 4, 1883.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of his funeral New York city
+presented an almost unexampled spectacle.
+All Soul's Unitarian Church, in which his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+body was deposited, early in the morning
+was thronged with a mighty multitude, passing
+in procession to look upon the beloved
+face. Eighteen young men from the Cooper
+Union surrounded it, as a guard of honor.
+A body of 3500 students of that institution,
+of both sexes, marched by, casting flowers
+upon the coffin, and followed by delegations
+from all the municipal and charitable organizations
+of the city, and by uncounted multitudes,
+whose relation to the beloved philanthropist
+was not official or representative,
+but simply personal.</p>
+
+<p>The busiest streets of New York, through
+which the funeral procession passed on its
+way to Greenwood Cemetery, beyond the
+East River, were closed to business and
+hung in black. The flags on all public
+buildings, and on the ships in the harbor,
+were at half-mast. The bells of all churches
+were tolled. The whole city mourned, as it
+had not done since, eighty years before, the
+funeral procession of George Washington
+moved through its streets.</p>
+
+<p>If we seek, without affectionate prejudice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+to discover the cause of this universal grief,
+affection, and admiration, we shall find, I
+think, that it lies chiefly in two circumstances;
+namely, the character of Peter
+Cooper as a lover of his kind, and the opportunity
+afforded him by his long life, not
+only to prove that character, but to become
+personally known to many thousands of
+those whom he sought unselfishly to serve.
+Few persons except military commanders
+have such an opportunity. The philanthropists
+who labor in secret, no matter with
+what noble motive, and do not come face to
+face with their beneficiaries, may win the
+applause of posterity, but cannot expect to
+receive the immediate and personal affection
+of their contemporaries. Least of all do
+posthumous gifts arouse this sentiment.
+Peter Cooper, above all other claims to renown
+and gratitude, identified himself with
+his philanthropy, and was known where he
+was loved.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Who gives himself with his gift, feeds three:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me!"</span><br />
+</div>
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Many years after his wife's death, and shortly before
+his own, Mr. Cooper dictated the following passage, which
+is almost the last in his <i>Reminiscences:</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Not only do I think of my wife during my waking
+moments; she often comes to me in my dreams, sometimes
+once a week, sometimes once in two weeks, and
+sometimes at longer intervals. It is one of the greatest
+pleasures of my life that I can believe that she has been,
+and is now, my guardian angel, and it is one of my happiest
+hopes that I shall see that this our world is but
+the bud of a being that is to ripen and bear its choicest
+fruits in another and a better."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Letter of Morse to the Secretary of the Treasury in
+the autumn of 1843.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> These and other statements in this chapter are taken
+from a lecture, delivered March 23, 1868, before the
+Maryland Institute, by Hon. J. H. B. Latrobe, giving
+his personal recollections of the early history of the Baltimore
+and Ohio Railroad.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Manuscript of his <i>Reminiscences</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This was the sacrifice of a favorite invention to immediate
+practical considerations, which has been mentioned
+above as an instance of Mr. Cooper's common
+sense.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> A curious survival of this state of things is the Manhattan
+Company, which secured from the legislature a
+perpetual charter, so skillfully framed (by Aaron Burr)
+that, although it grants much more extensive powers
+than could now be obtained by a corporation, it cannot
+be successfully assailed so long as the fundamental condition
+is fulfilled,&mdash;namely, that the company shall be
+prepared to furnish water at all times, on demand. It is
+said that, in compliance with this requirement, a small
+steam pump is kept continually running, in connection
+with a short system of pipes, somewhere near the City
+Hall, and that the company stands ready to furnish water
+to any applicant&mdash;only, the charter does not fix the price
+which it may exact! So far as I know, the only use now
+made of the extensive powers granted by this famous
+charter is the maintenance of the Manhattan Bank. A
+few years ago, excavations in lower Broadway brought to
+light bored logs, which were supposed to be relics of the
+old "Manhattan" system.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Not all of this amount is represented in permanent
+endowments, since large contributions to cover deficits in
+annual income as compared with current expenses, or for
+special repairs and alterations, do not appear under that
+head. According to the balance-sheet of January 1, 1900,
+the total assets consist of $1,075,428.62, the appraised
+value of the building, furniture, and apparatus; and $947,021.39
+in cash on hand or investments,&mdash;making a total
+of $2,022,450.01. Of the invested sum $953,159.30 is in
+"special endowments," of which the income only can be
+expended. This fund comprises $200,000 from Peter
+Cooper and $340,000 from the family of the late William
+Cooper, his brother; the remainder is made up of smaller
+gifts (the chief of which are a bequest of $30,000 from
+Wilson G. Hunt, one of the original trustees, and $10,000
+each from Mary Stuart, J. Pierpont Morgan, Morris K.
+Jesup, and John E. Parsons), and one of $300,000 made in
+December, 1899, by Andrew Carnegie. In addition to the
+aggregate thus made up Hon. Edward Cooper, the son,
+and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the son-in-law of Peter Cooper,
+have undertaken to furnish a further income of $10,000
+per annum; and finally, according to the 41st Annual
+Report of the Trustees (May, 1900), the Cooper Union,
+as residuary legatee under the will of the late John
+Holstead, will ultimately receive between $200,000 and
+$300,000.</p>
+<p>These recent additions to the endowment of the institution
+will enable the trustees to enlarge its usefulness
+in many ways, and especially (being no longer dependent
+for annual income upon rents) to utilize the whole of the
+building for educational purposes. Yet the total endowment
+will still be modest, as compared with that of many
+similar institutions of later origin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Old New Yorkers will be reminded of the closing
+lines of Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem,&mdash;</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+"And there is music twice a week<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">On Scudder's balcony."</span><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> There may have been more than a mere sentimental
+regret in his mind at that time; for his inventive intuition
+had struck out half a century before an idea to
+which the slow thought of his fellows had not yet attained,&mdash;the
+plan of utilizing roofs for the purpose of
+giving to all classes an ownership of free air and far distance
+and boundless sky as complete as any landowner
+could command by fencing off a mountain for his own
+pleasure. As he looked down upon the vast wilderness
+of roofs and thought of the multitude laboring beneath
+them or trudging through the streets ("up one ca&ntilde;on
+and down another," as old Jim Bridger the scout said in
+St. Louis), ignorant of the upper sphere within reach, he
+might well have felt that one part of his original scheme
+would still be a physical and moral boon to the metropolis.
+In fact the disappearance of the "vacant lots," so
+numerous in his youth, and so freely available as informal
+parks and playgrounds, had created new necessity
+for air and space. Whether he consciously recalled the
+hanging gardens of Babylon, or the flat roofs universally
+utilized for social and domestic purposes in eastern and
+southern countries, I do not know. At all events he had
+seized upon a similar idea, and now&mdash;nearly a score of
+years after his death&mdash;we are waking up to its value.
+Even the Cooper Union building some day, after more
+pressing needs of equipment shall have been satisfied,
+may be crowned with its garden of rest and outlook.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Of the original board, Peter Cooper was the first to
+pass away. Mr. Hunt and Mr. Tiemann have since died,
+and Mr. R. Fulton Cutting has been elected a trustee.
+The other vacancies have not been filled.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+
+<p>The original text had the list of other books on the first page. The first
+title page was placed before this list for this html edition. This is also reflected
+in the page numbering, [i], [iii], [ii].</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_xii">Page xii</a>, "8" changed to "6"</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Cooper
+       The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4
+
+Author: Rossiter W. Raymond
+
+Release Date: August 31, 2008 [EBook #26498]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER COOPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Biographical Series
+
+NUMBER 4
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+BY
+
+ROSSITER W. RAYMOND
+
+
+
+
+
+=The Riverside Biographical Series=
+
+          1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN.
+          2. JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW.
+          3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE.
+          4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND.
+          5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN.
+          6. WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES.
+          7. GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN.
+          8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON.
+          9. JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER.
+          10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by CHAS. A. CONANT.
+          11. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H. W. BOYNTON.
+          12. PAUL JONES, by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD.
+          13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W. G. BROWN.
+          14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. SEDGWICK, Jr.
+
+          Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure
+          portrait, 65 cents, _net_; _School Edition_, each,
+          50 cents, _net_.
+
+          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (signed) Peter Cooper]
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+BY
+
+ROSSITER W. RAYMOND
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+          HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+          =The Riverside Press Cambridge=
+
+
+
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.
+          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                   PAGE
+  PREFACE                                  vii
+     I. ANCESTRY                             1
+    II. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH                   10
+   III. BUSINESS VENTURES                   16
+    IV. INVENTIONS                          29
+     V. THE TOM THUMB                       38
+    VI. MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS                   52
+   VII. THE COOPER UNION FOR THE
+          ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART    64
+  VIII. NATIONAL POLITICS                   96
+    IX. THE END                            104
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+DURING the last decade of Peter Cooper's life, the writer of this
+biographical sketch enjoyed some degree of intimacy with him, as
+professional adviser and traveling companion, and also, incidentally, as
+consulting engineer of the firm of Cooper and Hewitt, and manager of a
+department in the Cooper Union. This circumstance, together with the
+preference kindly expressed by Mr. Cooper's family, doubtless influenced
+the selection of the writer for the honorable task of preparing this
+book,--a task which was welcome as a labor of love, though the execution
+of it has been hindered and impaired by the demands of other duties. The
+real difficulty has been to compress within the prescribed limits a
+story covering so many years and so many topics, yet not possessing
+those features of dramatic action or adventure which could be treated
+briefly, with picturesque effect.
+
+Mr. Cooper's family has kindly furnished abundant material for this
+work, including, besides his own published utterances, the notes of the
+stenographer to whom Mr. Cooper, in the last years of his life, dictated
+his "reminiscences." The use which has been made of these will be
+evident to the reader. Beyond an occasional revelation of the character
+of the speaker, or a side-light thrown upon the manners and conditions
+of our early national life, they have not furnished valuable data; and
+the study of them suggests an observation which may be heeded with
+advantage in similar cases hereafter, though it comes too late to be
+useful in this instance, namely, that the recollections of old people
+with retentive memories, like Peter Cooper, may be invaluable, if they
+are intelligently aroused and guided; but if the speakers (as in his
+case) are left to their own initiative, they are too likely to furnish
+superfluous accounts of events already described more accurately in
+authentic contemporaneous records.
+
+It has not been practicable to preserve, in the treatment of the
+subject, a strictly chronological order. As the titles of the several
+chapters indicate, the different lines of Mr. Cooper's activity have
+been considered, to some extent, separately, so that their periods
+overlap each other.
+
+This sketch of Mr. Cooper's career furnishes the elements of an
+analysis, which I introduce here, as a guide in the interpretation of
+what is to follow.
+
+1. The time of his birth and the prophetic anticipations of his parents
+profoundly influenced his ambition to do something great for his
+fellow-citizens of the republic whose life began so nearly with his own.
+
+2. The atmosphere surrounding his youth was one of unlimited and
+audacious adventure. New institutions, a virgin continent, the ardent
+desire to be independent of the Old World, and a profound belief in the
+destiny of America, all combined to stimulate endeavor. What Peter
+Cooper said of himself as an apprentice was true of the typical young
+American of his time: "I was always planning and contriving, and was
+never satisfied unless I was doing something difficult--something that
+had never been done before, if possible."
+
+3. The new freedom and the vast opportunity presented in the young
+republic encouraged, to a degree not paralleled before or since, that
+change of occupation which, with all its drawbacks, had the one great
+merit that it educated men to various activities. It was no disgrace to
+an American to go into one business after another, seeking the one which
+would prove most profitable and agreeable. Thus, Peter Cooper worked
+successively as a hatter, a coach-builder, a machinist, a machine-maker,
+a grocer, an iron-worker, and a glue-manufacturer, achieving success in
+every occupation, but abandoning each for something more promising, and
+learning in each something which promoted his success in the next.
+
+4. At every stage of his progress, he followed the ideal of personal
+independence, the honest acquisition of property, the establishment of a
+home, and the rearing of a family. These were the first duties and the
+dearest wishes--no matter what greater things might lie beyond. And he
+profoundly realized that temperance, industry, frugality, and patience
+were the necessary preliminaries to any longed-for achievement. As he
+says, he had first to spend thirty years in getting a start; then to
+spend another thirty years in accumulating the means for further advance
+into the wider sphere of his aspirations. And during each stage of this
+process, he was patient, as well as hopeful, neither wasting his
+energies in visionary schemes nor allowing the eddies of daily toil to
+divert the current of his deeper purposes.
+
+5. At every stage, however, he found himself hindered by lack of
+thorough knowledge. He invented perpetually and profusely; but some of
+his most cherished inventions did not find practical recognition,
+because he had attempted the premature or the impossible. His guiding
+principle, of trying to do something that had never been done before, is
+not an adequate substitute for a scientific knowledge of what can be,
+and now needs to be, done. He found himself often too far in advance of
+his generation. Moreover, he found that the lack of education crippled
+him in the attempt to make other men understand and appreciate his
+fruitful ideas. This is true of all really great "self-made men." They
+may have achieved success and fame in spite of early disadvantages; they
+may, perhaps, recognize the fact that such disadvantages, necessitating
+a stern struggle, have sifted out, by natural selection, the possessors
+of genius and sterling character; but not one of them fails to lament
+the lack of that early training which would have made him still more
+successful than he is; and not one of them fails to desire, for his
+children and the coming generation of his fellows, the early advantages
+which were denied to himself.
+
+6. This experience it was which gave form to the aspirations and
+purposes of Peter Cooper. As an apprentice, he resolved to do something
+for the benefit of apprentices--to found some institution which should
+supplement the deficiencies of early education, furnishing to virtuous,
+industrious, and ambitious youths the means of progress, and attracting
+the thoughtless or indolent into the same ascending road. How this
+conception came to be both modified and realized will be seen in later
+pages. At this point it is sufficient to note that the plan was
+originally not only philanthropic, but patriotic and practical. It
+contemplated the benefit, through means adapted to their special
+condition, of Americans of that class to which Peter Cooper himself
+belonged.
+
+Some further observations concerning the secret of the universal esteem
+and affection enjoyed by Mr. Cooper will be reserved for the closing
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ANCESTRY
+
+
+OBADIAH COOPER, who, with his two brothers, came from England to the
+colony of New York about 1662, belonged, as we may infer with
+confidence, to that sturdy class of republican yeomanry which found the
+restored reign of the Stuarts intolerable. He settled at
+Fishkill-on-the-Hudson; and his son Obadiah--whom tradition declares to
+have been the fourth white man child born in what is now Dutchess
+County--was the great-grandfather of Peter Cooper. In 1720 an Obadiah of
+the next generation followed, and of his son John, born in 1755, Peter
+Cooper was the fifth child.
+
+John Cooper came of age in the year of the Declaration of Independence.
+In the issue between the British government and the American colonies
+his choice could not be doubtful. He followed the traditions of his
+family. Indeed, it is now well established and universally admitted that
+the patriots of the American Revolution were not in fact arrayed against
+England. They were engaged in a struggle which was but a part of the
+great conflict waged against shortsighted and obstinate tyranny by
+Englishmen on both sides of the ocean, and in which the victory for
+liberty was won on this side sooner than on the other. What the Coopers
+and their kind achieved here was applauded openly in the mother country
+by the descendants of a common ancestry as a triumph for the common
+cause. The use of foreign mercenaries under British commanders in this
+country was the direct result of the impossibility of inducing
+Englishmen to enlist for service against their American kinsmen. Hence
+when John Cooper, of Fishkill, abandoned in 1776 the business he had
+just established as a hatter, and became sergeant in a company of
+"minute-men," he was but pursuing the course indicated both by his own
+convictions and by the history of his fathers and the sympathies of the
+party in England to which they had belonged. It was Freedom's battle
+"handed down from sire to son."
+
+He served subsequently for two years in the Continental line, and for
+the last four years of the war as a lieutenant in the New York militia,
+actively employed in the perilous service of protecting life, property,
+and the public stores in the zone of debatable territory,--the "bloody
+ground" which surrounded the British lines in New York. At the close of
+the war, New York having been evacuated by the enemy, Lieutenant John
+Cooper retired to civil life, and resumed business as a hatter in that
+city,--a worthy example of that American citizen soldiery which has
+always been equally ready to leave the ways of peace for its country's
+defense, and to return to them when the exigency had passed.
+
+It was in 1779, during his military service, that John Cooper married
+Margaret, the daughter of John Campbell, a deputy quartermaster-general
+in the Continental army, and a trusted agent of Washington. The outbreak
+of hostilities in 1776 had found John Campbell a prosperous merchant and
+owner of real estate in New York city. He at once lent to the
+Revolutionary government eleven hundred guineas,--the whole of his ready
+money,--entered the service, was made deputy quartermaster-general, and
+was directed to superintend the hasty evacuation of the city by the Whig
+inhabitants, and to protect them and their property as far as possible.
+Lingering too long to assist some of the laggards, he was captured by
+the forces landed from the British fleet, but was subsequently released;
+and he made a temporary home at Fishkill while actively engaged in
+establishing the lines by which the British army, though holding the
+city and commanding its access to the sea, was practically besieged.
+General Campbell served throughout the war, and after hostilities had
+ceased commanded the troops at West Point until they were finally
+disbanded in 1785.
+
+It is easy to imagine how the young lieutenant and the daughter of the
+commander who must have been frequently brought into personal relations
+with him may have met and loved and wedded in the midst of those
+troublous times, but the romance would have no special bearing on this
+history. It is enough to say that by this marriage the best blood of
+England and Scotland--of servants of God and lovers of freedom--was
+blended in the nine children, seven sons and two daughters, of whom
+Peter Cooper--born February 12, 1791, in Little Dock (now Water) Street,
+New York--was the fifth.
+
+John Cooper was not characteristically a seer of visions or a dreamer of
+dreams. On the contrary, the accounts of him which have come down to us
+describe him as a stalwart athlete, who "could lift a barrel of cider
+from the ground and put it in a wagon," and who once, being cornered and
+attacked by a bull, seized the animal's nose with one hand and so
+battered its head with a stone that it was glad to turn and fly. Yet he
+came of a race that believed in Divine guidance; and on one occasion at
+least he acted upon that belief in a matter then deemed more important,
+perhaps, than now. The incident can be given best in the words of Peter
+Cooper himself, who wrote:--
+
+"My father used to tell me how he came to call me Peter. When I was born
+he became strongly impressed with the idea that I would some day have
+more than ordinary fame, and what name he should give me was a matter of
+serious and frequent thought. While walking on Broadway one dark night
+it seemed as though a voice spoke to him in a clear and distinct manner:
+'Call him Peter!' That seeming voice settled my name. My father said
+that he felt that I was to be of great good in some way; and his
+remarks, with my mother's, concerning their aspirations and hopes for me
+acted as a stimulus and made me anxious to fulfill their wishes, and not
+disappoint them."
+
+If names were to be characteristic of individual careers, it might be
+better to imitate some Indian tribes, and to give the permanent name
+only after the career, or at least the character, of its recipient had
+been indicated by his acts. In this instance the subsequent life of the
+son did not in any peculiar way imitate that of the Apostle Peter.
+Evidently not that particular name, but the simple fact that an eminent
+name, thus suggested and not already familiar in his family, had been
+given to him, produced upon his mind the effect to which he testifies.
+
+But why should practical John Cooper be disposed to anticipate a special
+distinction for the infant who was the fifth of his numerous progeny?
+From the standpoint of the modes of thought of the godly patriots of
+that generation, and of their ancestors, the English Puritans and the
+Scotch Covenanters, it is scarcely hazardous to assume that current
+public affairs largely affected such domestic choices. Peter Cooper's
+birth was practically simultaneous with the launching of that Ship of
+State, the "Union, strong and great," in which all patriots had embarked
+"their hopes, triumphant o'er their fears." To his veteran-soldier
+father he was the first child of the new era; and the dreams that were
+dreamed over him were doubtless connected with that glorious future
+which had just dawned upon the federated republic. The choice of an
+unfamiliar, non-hereditary name, however suggested, symbolized the break
+between the old time and the new.
+
+Above all, this incident produced in the son thus christened the
+profoundest effects, the deepest motives, that can inspire a boyish
+soul,--the belief in a beneficent mission, the yearning to discover it,
+the resolve to execute it, and the conviction that it was to be directly
+connected with the prosperity and progress of the great nation, the life
+of which began with his own.
+
+The naming of Peter Cooper thus strikes the keynote, or, more
+accurately, the triple chord, of his life. For he was first of all an
+American, keenly aware of the opportunities offered by the free
+institutions of his country to individual ambition, industry, and
+genius, and of his own personal ability to make use of these
+opportunities. Secondly, he was a lover of his fellow men, determined to
+employ for their benefit the means and powers which he felt himself able
+to accumulate by thought, toil, and frugal economy. Thirdly, he was even
+in his philanthropy essentially still an American, intent most of all
+upon the welfare of those classes of his countrymen with whose struggles
+and needs his own early life had made him familiar. In other words,
+while his philanthropy covered a world-wide range, his peculiar mission,
+as he conceived it, was indissolubly blent with the success of the
+republic of which he was one of the earliest-born sons.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
+
+
+AT a meeting of friends, gathered February 12, 1882, to celebrate his
+ninety-first birthday anniversary, Mr. Cooper, after expressing his
+thanks for their congratulatory good wishes, and observing that in his
+case "length of days had not yet resulted in weariness of spirit," added
+this review of his life:--
+
+"Looking back, I can see that my career has been divided into three
+eras. During the first thirty years I was engaged in getting a start in
+life; during the second thirty years I was occupied in getting means for
+carrying out the modest plan which I had long formed for the benefit of
+my fellow men; and during the last thirty years I have devoted myself to
+the execution of these plans. This work is now done."
+
+Accepting this division of his career, as convenient, though not
+strictly accurate (since the processes described really overlapped
+instead of separately succeeding one another), we may consider first Mr.
+Cooper's means and method of achieving personal success; and in this
+survey the conditions of his boyhood and early youth are primarily
+important.
+
+While he was still very young, the family removed from a temporary
+residence of three years in New York city to Peekskill, where he
+remained until, at the age of seventeen, he returned to New York as an
+apprentice, to be, thenceforward, dependent upon his own exertions for a
+living.
+
+The intervening period was spent in ways characteristic of the period
+and of the individual. He attended school for three or four "quarters,"
+of which period, according to his later recollection, "probably half was
+occupied by 'half-day' school." Outside of this scanty formal
+instruction, there is ample evidence that he developed body and mind in
+varied work and play. He bore to the end of life the scars of youthful
+escapades, witnessing the adventurous spirit of his boyhood. When only
+four years old, he climbed about the framework of a new house, and fell,
+head downward, upon an iron kettle, cutting his forehead to the bone.
+Later on, he was accidentally cut with a knife in the hands of a
+playmate. Later still, he cut himself dangerously with an axe. Again, he
+fell from a high tree, holding an iron hook with which he had been
+reaching for cherry-bearing branches, and managed to hook out one of his
+teeth. At another time he went for the nest of a hanging-bird, and had
+the fact that it was a hornet's nest indelibly impressed on his memory.
+Of course, he was nearly drowned three times,--such youngsters always
+have such escapes. In short, he was a thorough boy, adventuring all
+things, daunted by nothing, and protected from the results of his
+reckless endeavors by that Providence which watches over small boys.
+
+But such a temperament finds play in useful work also. The boy learned
+every department of the hat-making business, beginning, when he was very
+young, with pulling the fur from the skins of rabbits. And, while
+assisting his mother in doing the family washing, he made what was,
+perhaps, his first invention,--a mechanical arrangement for pounding the
+soiled linen. Again, after carefully dissecting an old shoe, to learn
+how it was put together, he determined to make shoes and slippers for
+the family, and succeeded in turning out products of manufacture which
+were said to be as good as those to be found, at that day, in the
+regular trade.
+
+He constructed a toy wagon, sold it for six dollars, managed to gather
+four dollars more, invested the ten dollars in lottery tickets, and drew
+only blanks, of which experience he said many years later, "I consider
+it one of the best investments of my life; for I then learned that it
+was not my _forte_ to make money at games of chance."
+
+When he was between thirteen and fourteen years old, his father built a
+large malt-house at Newburg, and the son loaded with his own hands and
+carted to the site selected all the stone for the building. Collecting
+wild honey and shooting game in the forests around Peekskill were
+additional employments which combined pleasure with profit. But this
+life did not satisfy the ambition of the youth; and in 1808, at the age
+of seventeen, he left the paternal roof and apprenticed himself for four
+years to John Woodward, a leading coach-builder in New York, whose shop
+was located on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, then the
+northerly edge of the city, opposite a vegetable garden, the remnants of
+which, after the occupation of a large portion by city, county, and
+national buildings, now constitute the City Hall Park. The terms of his
+employment were his board and a salary of twenty-five dollars a
+year,--out of which he managed not only to pay all obligations, but also
+to lay by a little money. During this period he not only mastered the
+details of the trade, but learned in his hours of leisure other
+branches, such as ornamental wood-carving, and made several inventions,
+one of which was a machine for mortising hubs,--an operation performed
+by hand up to that time. Another invention over which the young
+apprentice dreamed, and of which he laboriously constructed a model, was
+an apparatus for utilizing, in the running of machinery, the swift
+current of the tide in the East River.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+BUSINESS VENTURES
+
+
+AT the end of his apprenticeship, his employer offered to set him up in
+business as a coach-builder, lending him the necessary capital. Many
+years later, Mr. Cooper told the story thus:--
+
+"I was about to accept his generous offer, when an incident occurred
+which changed my decision. Mr. Woodward had just completed one of the
+finest coaches ever built in New York, for a gentleman who was supposed
+to be one of the richest men in the city. But a day or two before the
+coach was to be delivered the gentleman died, and it was then found that
+he was insolvent. This made me hesitate. If I should accept my
+employer's kind offer and have such a misfortune happen to me in the
+sale of an elegant and expensive coach, I should consider myself a slave
+for life, since the law of imprisonment for debt had not then been
+abolished. So I changed my plans, and went to Hempstead, Long Island, to
+visit my brother."
+
+The visit to Hempstead became a prolonged residence. He obtained work at
+$1.50 a day (then regarded as high wages) in a factory making machines
+for shearing cloth, and after nearly three years had saved enough money
+to purchase the right for the State of New York to a patented machine
+for that purpose. He used to tell, in his old age, of his elation when
+he effected his first sale of a county-right, for which he received five
+hundred dollars from Mr. Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, afterwards the founder
+of Vassar College.
+
+The manufacture and sale of the new shearing-machine, into which Mr.
+Cooper introduced many additional improvements, was a prosperous
+business, especially during the war of 1812, when domestic woolen goods
+were in great demand. He married, December 18, 1813, Sarah Bedell, a
+lady of Huguenot descent, who made for him a happy home during
+fifty-seven years.[1] He bought a house in Hempstead, expecting to
+remain there; and in the household, as in business, he gave rein to his
+ardent and versatile inventive faculty. One of his domestic contrivances
+rocked the cradle, fanned away the flies, and played a lullaby to the
+baby. He sold the patent in Connecticut to a Yankee peddler for a horse
+and wagon, and the peddler's stock, including a hurdy-gurdy. Another
+invention was a machine for mowing grass, constructed on the principle
+of his cloth-shearing machine.
+
+But after the war, the domestic woolen mills were shut down, and there
+was no sale for Mr. Cooper's machines. So he first turned his factory
+into a furniture shop, and then, selling it for what he could get, he
+moved to New York, and started in the grocery business, buying for this
+purpose a long lease of the ground where the Bible House now stands,
+opposite the Cooper Union on Ninth Street. Upon this ground he erected
+several buildings, one of which he used as his office. The business was
+profitable; but the real foundation of Mr. Cooper's wealth was laid
+when, at the age of thirty-three, he purchased a glue factory, situated
+where the Park Avenue Hotel now stands, and established himself as a
+glue manufacturer. The business speedily acquired and held for half a
+century practically the whole trade of the country in glue and
+isinglass,--a monopoly fairly earned by the cheapness and excellence of
+its product.
+
+Mr. Cooper's inventions improved the quality and reduced the cost of his
+product, while his energy, industry, and frugality steadily increased
+his surplus cash, and enabled him, without borrowing capital, to extend
+his sphere of operations. For many years, he carried on his glue
+business without bookkeeper, agent, or salesman. Dawn found him at the
+suburban factory (on what is now Thirty-Second Street) lighting the
+fires and preparing for the day's work; at noon, he drove in his buggy
+to the city, where he made his own sales and purchases; and all his
+evenings he spent at home, making up his accounts, answering his
+correspondents, studying out new inventions, or talking and reading to
+his wife and children.
+
+By these simple, old-fashioned methods he built up a business and
+accumulated a fortune too large to be thus administered. It would have
+been impossible for one head to carry the details of work and
+management, for one pair of eyes to superintend each part of the work,
+or for one pair of feet, however tireless, to travel all the ways which
+lead to and from a great modern industrial establishment. Still less
+could financial direction and protection be compassed by the simple
+scheme which Mr. Cooper, in his old age, recalled with pride. "I used,"
+he said once, "to pay all my debts every Saturday night; and I knew
+that what I had left was my own!" This could not have been strictly
+true; but it doubtless expressed an old man's memory of the way he
+began, and the principles he had followed, with that horror of debt
+which dated from the time when debtors could be put in jail. Fortunately
+for Mr. Cooper, his son Edward, and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt,
+were at hand to undertake the management of his business enterprises at
+the time when his own simple methods would have proved inadequate, so
+that his inventive genius, adventurous courage, and, above all, intense
+philanthropy, were backed with ample means.
+
+In this account of his business ventures (though of much later date than
+those already mentioned) the part played by Peter Cooper in the
+development of the American iron industry and in the construction of the
+first transatlantic submarine telegraph may be recorded.
+
+The manufacture of iron was one of the early industries of the American
+colonies, and after the Revolution it was prosecuted with increased
+activity in small and primitive establishments. With its development
+into scientific forms on a large scale Mr. Cooper was both directly and
+indirectly connected. His Ringwood estate in New Jersey had been the
+scene of the operations of the Ringwood Company in 1740, and of its
+successors,--Hasenclever (1764) and Erskine (1771); and the Durham
+furnace, on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania (on the site of the
+Durham Iron Works of Cooper & Hewitt), made its first blast in 1727. Mr.
+Cooper himself was engaged in 1830 in the manufacture of charcoal iron
+near Baltimore, and in 1836, together with his brother Thomas, he
+operated a rolling-mill in New York (on Thirty-Third Street, near Third
+Avenue). At this mill anthracite was used for puddling in 1840. In 1845
+the business was removed to Trenton, N. J.; and in the new
+rolling-mill--then the largest in the United States--built at Trenton
+for the manufacture of rails, the first iron beams for buildings were
+rolled in 1854. By the erection of blast furnaces at Phillipsburg and
+Ringwood, N. J., and Durham, Pa., and the addition of wire mills, bridge
+shop, chain shop, etc., to the works at Trenton, the purchase of iron
+and coal lands, and the development of numerous mines, the firm of
+Cooper & Hewitt achieved high rank among the ironmasters of America; and
+the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain conferred upon Peter
+Cooper in 1879 the "Bessemer gold medal" for his services in the
+development of the American iron trade. In 1890 the same honor was given
+to Mr. Abram S. Hewitt in recognition of the experiments at Phillipsburg
+as early as 1856 to test the new invention of Bessemer, of his
+introduction of the open-hearth steel process into the United States,
+and of other services rendered to the steel industry,--in all of which
+he may be said to have followed, with the advantages of a wider culture
+and ampler means, the example set by Mr. Cooper.
+
+One of the boldest yet wisest and most profitable operations of Mr.
+Cooper was his investment in the Atlantic cable enterprise of Cyrus
+Field. He was already past middle age when this audacious scheme began
+to be dreamed of. In 1842 Morse had laid down an experimental cable from
+Castle Garden to Governor's Island in New York harbor, and claimed as a
+practical inference that a telegraphic communication on his plan could
+"with certainty be established across the Atlantic."[2] In 1851 the
+first cable was laid between France and England, and others rapidly
+followed on ocean lines over short distances. The principle was thus
+established, and the doubts as to its practical application to a line of
+at least twenty-five hundred miles were of such a character as to seem
+more serious to scientific men than to American capitalists of Mr.
+Cooper's type. In March, 1854, the New York, Newfoundland, & London
+Telegraph Company was organized, and Mr. Cooper became (and remained for
+twenty trying years) its president. There was little difficulty in
+raising the money for the eighty-five miles of cable which were to be
+laid under the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or in obtaining from the British
+colonies favorable charters granting exclusive privileges, land grants,
+and even subsidies. Yet the construction of the land line across
+Newfoundland to the terminus at Heart's Content proved difficult and
+costly, and the St. Lawrence cable was lost in laying. Yet additional
+capital was subscribed; and a couple of years later the Newfoundland
+line, the St. Lawrence cable, and another submarine link of thirteen
+miles across the Straits of Northumberland had been successfully
+finished. Nothing remained to be done _except_ the procuring of means
+and the devising of successful methods for the installation of the
+Atlantic cable itself, without which all this preliminary expenditure
+would have been thrown away.
+
+The capital estimated as necessary for making and laying the cable was
+raised by Mr. Field in England, where the Atlantic Telegraph Company was
+formed to construct and operate the line under concessions from the
+parent Newfoundland company. All classes in England felt a sentimental
+interest in the romantic enterprise; and the subscribers to the new
+stock included such men as Thackeray and others of equal note, outside
+of business circles altogether.
+
+The company proceeded with vigor,--secured from the governments of Great
+Britain and the United States guaranties of subsidies and the free use
+of ships for laying the cable; contracts for the cable and its
+insulating covering were executed; and by the end of July, 1857, the
+British Agamemnon and the American Niagara had each twelve hundred and
+fifty miles of it on board. In August they connected the two halves of
+it in mid-Atlantic, and in September the shore end was landed at Heart's
+Content.
+
+The sequel is familiar history. A few messages had been sent and
+received, when the current grew weaker and weaker, and at last failed
+entirely. The result was a strong reaction in popular sentiment. It was
+even questioned whether any messages had actually crossed the Atlantic.
+Fortunately this doubt could be conclusively disproved,--especially in
+England, where it was known that the British government had wired by the
+cable before its failure news of great political importance. The British
+company indeed courageously proceeded to make another cable; but when
+this parted in mid-ocean during the process of laying it even British
+tenacity of purpose was daunted, and for some two years the enterprise
+seemed to be dead. Meanwhile public opinion on this side was far more
+unfavorable, and the parent company found itself without means or
+credit. To retain its privileges it must pay additional money, and to
+make those privileges worth anything capital must be raised for a third
+attempt to lay the transatlantic line.
+
+Without describing in detail the difficulties and anxieties of this
+period, it may be said that the intelligent courage of Peter Cooper
+saved the enterprise, while it secured to him a large pecuniary reward;
+for he perceived that the real problem had been solved by the first
+apparent failure; that the failure of a cable in use or the loss of a
+cable in laying it were mere incidental misfortunes which more thorough
+precautions and better luck would preclude; and he backed with his own
+faith and money the undaunted enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence of Mr.
+Field, whose expenses he paid for another journey to England, and who
+succeeded at last in raising there the funds for the third and
+successful attempt. Moreover Mr. Cooper upheld the credit of the
+Newfoundland company, personally paying the drafts drawn upon it, and
+taking its bonds as his security. It is too much to say that the
+Atlantic cable would never have been laid, but there can be no doubt
+that the enterprise would have been long suspended, without this timely
+aid. The third cable was a success; the lost second was recovered and
+made useful; and now the thing is easy which thus seemed so
+problematical. If Peter Cooper received in the end a handsome sum from
+this investment, who could grudge him the wealth so acquired?
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Many years after his wife's death, and shortly before his own, Mr.
+Cooper dictated the following passage, which is almost the last in his
+_Reminiscences_:--
+
+"Not only do I think of my wife during my waking moments; she often
+comes to me in my dreams, sometimes once a week, sometimes once in two
+weeks, and sometimes at longer intervals. It is one of the greatest
+pleasures of my life that I can believe that she has been, and is now,
+my guardian angel, and it is one of my happiest hopes that I shall see
+that this our world is but the bud of a being that is to ripen and bear
+its choicest fruits in another and a better."
+
+[2] Letter of Morse to the Secretary of the Treasury in the autumn of
+1843.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+INVENTIONS
+
+
+THE inventions projected, though in many instances not perfected or
+successfully introduced, by Mr. Cooper constitute a long list and cover
+a wide field. A few of them may be mentioned here, in addition to those
+to which allusion has been made already. It will be seen that even those
+which failed of commercial success generally contained the germs of
+future mechanical progress, and bore witness to the extraordinary vigor
+and versatility of his genius.
+
+When the Erie Canal was approaching completion it occurred to Mr. Cooper
+that canal boats might be propelled by the power of water drawn from a
+higher level and moving a series of endless chains along the canal.
+After some preliminary experiments he built a flat-bottomed scow,
+arranged a water wheel to utilize the tidal current in the East River,
+and actually achieved a trial trip of two miles and return, in which
+Governor Clinton and other invited guests took part. The governor was so
+well pleased that he paid Mr. Cooper eight hundred dollars for the first
+chance to purchase the right of applying the method on the new canal.
+But the scheme failed for the reason (as Mr. Cooper explained half a
+century later) that the right of way for the Erie Canal had been secured
+from the farmers of the State by representing to them the profit which
+they would realize from selling forage, etc., for the use of canal
+boats, which were to be drawn by horses or mules. The introduction of
+mechanical power would destroy these inducements, and the plan was
+abandoned,--though Mr. Cooper had demonstrated its feasibility by
+running his endless chain on the East River for ten days and carrying
+hundreds of passengers over the trial route. It is not likely that such
+a use of water power on the Erie Canal would have proved practicable on
+a large scale; but the endless chain, which Mr. Cooper apparently
+considered as a minor feature only, has been adopted since, and lies at
+the basis of the famous Belgian system of river and canal
+transportation.
+
+In 1824 the wave of enthusiastic sympathy for the Greeks which swept
+over the country upon receipt of the tidings of their revolt against
+Turkish tyranny stimulated Mr. Cooper to invent a torpedo boat, to be
+steered from the shore by "two steel wires, like the reins of a horse."
+But on the trial trip of the boat a ship crossed and broke the wires
+when about six of their total length of ten miles had been let out. The
+delay made the invention too late for use by the Greeks, and it was not
+further pursued.
+
+About 1835 the subject of aerial navigation had in the United States one
+of its periodical revivals. Mr. Cooper, believing that a motive power
+developed from materials of small weight was essential to the solution
+of the problem, resolved to employ the explosive force of chloride of
+nitrogen,--one of the most dangerous compounds known to chemists. The
+result of his experiments in this direction was an explosion which blew
+his apparatus to pieces, and nearly cost the audacious inventor an eye.
+In fact, though the organ was saved from total destruction, it was
+permanently injured.
+
+The conveyance of freight by aerial cables--a method now widely
+used--was practiced by Mr. Cooper at an early day. The use of elevators
+in buildings was foreseen and provided for by him in the erection of the
+Cooper Union building, and in that building also he introduced for the
+first time iron beams as part of a fire-proof construction. In these and
+other inventions his prophetic intuitions were illustrated.
+
+But such intuitions do not fully take the place of scientific training;
+and one of the inventions of Peter Cooper--which he considered for many
+years, and possibly to the very last, as his crowning achievement--was a
+curious example of misdirected ingenuity. It is worthy of notice here,
+however, for another reason, namely, because of its accidental
+association with one of its inventor's most remarkable triumphs.
+
+As a young apprentice he had studied the steam engine, and had resolved
+that he would improve it by doing away with the crank. To his mind this
+was a source of great loss of power, and he believed that, if he could
+transform the rectilinear motion of the piston rod directly into rotary
+motion without the intervention of the crank, he would effect a notable
+economy.
+
+Now, there is no such loss of power through the crank as he imagined,
+nor is it likely that any other device for obtaining rotary from
+rectilinear motion will be found superior to that which Watt devised.
+But Peter Cooper assailed this fancied evil with undoubting confidence,
+both as to its existence and as to his ability to do away with it. The
+result was an invention for which he received, April 28, 1828, letters
+patent of the United States. At that early day patents were
+comparatively few,--so few that this one bears no number; and the duties
+of general administration did not prevent the highest officials from
+attending to details. This patent, issued to Peter Cooper, of New York,
+was personally signed by John Quincy Adams, President; countersigned by
+Henry Clay, Secretary of State; transmitted to William Wirt,
+Attorney-General; examined, approved, and signed by him, and returned to
+the Department of State for final delivery to the patentee. It grants
+for fourteen years to the said Peter Cooper, his heirs, administrators,
+and assignees the exclusive right to make, use, or license others to
+use, the described improvement in the method of effecting rotary motion
+directly from the alternate rectilinear motion of a steam piston.
+Evidently these distinguished statesmen--Adams, Clay, and Wirt--were not
+experts in mechanics, or at least did not undertake to hinder by
+technical criticism the experiments of American ambition; and there was
+no trained corps of patent-examiners to decide upon the novelty,
+practicability, and usefulness of any proposed improvement in the arts.
+Probably the government shared at that time the dominant American
+feeling of unconquerable youth, ready to attack all problems, especially
+those which previous experience had pronounced insoluble, and to
+determine the impossible by attempting it. This spirit has in fact more
+or less dominated the United States Patent Office down to the present
+time. With all its present equipment of examiners, trained in theory and
+versed in technical literature, it still concerns itself chiefly in the
+consideration of a proposed invention with the question of novelty,
+rather than that of feasibility or value; and the effect has been that,
+while thousands of patents are granted for absurd, unnecessary, or
+inoperative devices, the net result of the encouragement thus given to
+individual ingenuity and audacity is a catalogue of great inventions
+unmatched in the history of any other nation.
+
+The patent of Peter Cooper, which now lies before me,--a time-stained
+parchment bearing the great seal of the United States and the autographs
+of the famous men named above,--is accompanied by no drawings; but it
+contains a detailed specification which shows that the invention
+consisted in an arrangement by which, at each forward movement, a
+prolongation of the piston rod clawed into an endless chain, which was
+pulled back by the return stroke. This chain passed around a wheel, to
+which it consequently imparted a rotary motion.
+
+Engineers do not need to be told that this cumbrous arrangement could
+not successfully replace the crank, even if such a replacement were
+desirable. Yet the inventor constructed a working-machine, and satisfied
+himself, by a "duty trial" of some sort, that it "saved two fifths of
+the steam." His discovery, however, was not hailed with immediate
+recognition by the mechanical public; and its author, undisturbed in his
+faith, bided his time.
+
+This, by the way, points to a characteristic of Peter Cooper,
+differentiating him from the numerous enthusiasts whom prudent men are
+accustomed to avoid. He was not a man "of one idea." His fertile and
+ingenious mind threw out its suggestions in every direction, into fields
+untrodden by experience; but when any such plan failed of acceptance, he
+turned, with undiminished courage and hope, to something else,
+remaining, nevertheless, still steadfast in his former conception, and
+ready to seize any opportunity for its realization.
+
+Thus it came to pass that Mr. Cooper's abortive improvement upon the
+steam engine was the source of his fame as the builder of the first
+American locomotive, as the following chapter will explain.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE TOM THUMB
+
+
+IN the specification of the patent secured in 1828 by Mr. Cooper for an
+improved steam engine, he took pains to declare the suitability of his
+invention as a motor for "land carriages." No doubt he had heard of
+Stephenson's "Rocket," if not of the engine built by Blenkinsop in 1813,
+the sight of which in operation caused Stephenson to resolve that he
+would "make a better." The famous competitive trial of the Rocket, the
+Novelty, the Sanspareil, and the Perseverance, on a two-mile section of
+the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, took place in October, 1827, at
+which time Peter Cooper must have been perfecting the application for
+his patent.
+
+But other circumstances played their part in the result which we are
+about to consider. Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had been drawn into
+a land speculation at Canton, in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing of
+support from his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to
+assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was
+great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A
+little earlier, there had been general despair among the merchants of
+that city. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were seeking the trade
+of the region beyond the Alleghanies,--then "the West," but now the
+centre of the population of the United States. New York flanked the
+mountains with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia got at last a practicable,
+though less satisfactory, water line; but Baltimore, though nearest of
+all to the longed-for market, found, through careful examination by
+eminent engineers, that no canal was practicable for her, at a cost
+within her means. In 1824 and 1825 the consequent general despondency
+concerning the future of the city was so strong that Baltimore
+merchants began to move to New York and Philadelphia.[3]
+
+But at this period the world began to hear of railways. A well-known
+merchant of Baltimore, returning from England, described with enthusiasm
+the coal trains, drawn by the cumbrous ante-Stephenson engines, which he
+had seen there. The idea of a tramway (with or without steam motors)
+found ready acceptance in a community both enterprising and desperate. A
+town meeting, held in 1826, to consider Western communications, resulted
+in an application to the Maryland legislature, and the incorporation, in
+March, 1827, of the Baltimore and Ohio,--the first railroad company thus
+created in the United States for purposes of general transportation,--the
+leader of that vast multitude of similar enterprises, the history of
+which is the history of our nation's marvelous commercial progress. By
+the legislative charter, the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland
+were authorized to subscribe to the company's stock.
+
+In the address already cited, Mr. Latrobe, an eye-witness, says of the
+scenes which followed:--
+
+"Then came a scene which almost beggars description. By this time,
+public excitement had gone beyond fever heat and reached the boiling
+point. Everybody wanted stock. The number of shares subscribed were to
+be apportioned, if the limit of the capital should be exceeded; and
+every one set about obtaining proxies. Parents subscribed in the names
+of their children, and paid the dollar on each share that the rules
+prescribed. Before even a survey had been made, the possession of stock
+in any quantity was regarded as a provision for old age; and great was
+the scramble to obtain it. The excitement in Baltimore roused public
+attention elsewhere; and a railroad mania began to pervade the land."
+
+The proposed railroad was to pass through Mr. Cooper's Canton property,
+which he had already begun to develop, "so that it should pay the
+taxes," by building upon it charcoal kilns, after a design of his own,
+with the purpose of turning the forest into charcoal, and, by means of
+this fuel, smelting the iron ore which the land contained. What was the
+immediate commercial outcome of this enterprise is not recorded. Mr.
+Cooper's characteristic recollection, more than sixty years later, was
+that, "with the exception of a dangerous explosion," which nearly cost
+him his life, the charcoal kilns were "a great success!"
+
+But the great value of the property was expected to be realized through
+the new railroad; and this expectation suffered a serious blow when the
+horse cars failed to pay expenses; the operation of the line was
+suspended; the directors lost faith in the enterprise; and many of the
+principal stockholders declared that they would rather lose the
+investment made so far than "throw good money after bad." For the hope
+that the new agency of steam might help them out was blighted by the
+news from England that Stephenson had said that steam could not be used
+as a motive power on a road having curves of less than 900 feet radius;
+and this road had, at Point of Rocks, a necessary curve with a radius of
+only 150 feet!
+
+The situation presented exactly the sort of challenge calculated to
+arouse the courage and ingenuity of Peter Cooper, besides appealing to
+another of his personal characteristics, namely, his undying and
+unalterable faith in his own ideas and conclusions, whether they had
+achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not
+found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with
+undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real
+defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a
+providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could
+not run their locomotives around sharp curves, it must be because they
+persisted in using the vicious crank, which he had already superseded by
+his (temporarily unappreciated) invention! And, with unshaken faith in
+that device, he informed the Baltimore and Ohio directors (to use the
+words in which, long afterwards, he told the story) that he thought he
+"could knock together a locomotive which would get a train around the
+Point of Rocks."
+
+It is a curious circumstance that, ever since that day, the
+characteristic difference between English and American locomotives has
+been the ability of the latter to pass curves of shorter radius than the
+former can safely follow. The reason, as all railway engineers know, is
+that the usual English construction involves a rigid frame, while the
+American has a movable truck or "bogie" under the front part of the
+engine. This solution of the problem was not reached by Mr. Cooper. What
+he, in fact, accomplished was simply a piece of audacity, which
+encouraged the enterprise of his countrymen, by proving that the dictum
+of limited experience abroad was not conclusive. Two features of his
+Baltimore experiment were characteristic of him. The first was that he
+undertook it, not merely in order to vindicate his invention, but to
+effect a practical result, namely, to make his land speculation pay. And
+the second was that when he found it difficult to operate his pet
+invention in this experiment, he laid it aside at once,--without losing
+an atom of faith in it, but also without persisting (as a typical
+enthusiast would have done) in risking upon the vindication of his
+personal opinion in one matter the success of another undertaking, more
+immediately important.
+
+Mr. Cooper's own recollection of this event deserves to be told in his
+own words. He says:[4]--
+
+"I came back to New York for a little bit of a brass engine of
+mine--about one horse power (it had a 3 1/2 in. cylinder and 14 in.
+stroke)--and carried it back to Baltimore. I got some boiler iron and
+made a boiler about as high as an ordinary wash boiler; and then how to
+connect the boiler with the engine I didn't know. I couldn't find any
+iron pipes. The fact was that there were none for sale in this country.
+So I took two muskets, broke off the wooden parts, and used the barrels
+for tubing, one on one side and the other on the other side of the
+boiler. I went into a coach-maker's shop and made this locomotive, which
+I called the Tom Thumb, because it was so insignificant. I didn't intend
+it for actual service, but only to show the directors what could be
+done. I meant to test two things: first, I meant to show that short
+turns could be made; and secondly, that I could get rotary motion
+without the use of a crank. I effected both of these things very nicely.
+I changed the movement from a reciprocating to a rotary motion.
+
+"I got up steam one Saturday night. The president of the road and two or
+three other gentlemen were there. We got on the truck and went out two
+or three miles. All were delighted; for it opened new possibilities for
+the railroad. I put up the locomotive for the night in a shed, and
+invited the company to ride to Ellicott's Mills on Monday. Monday
+morning, what was my chagrin to find that some scamp had been there,
+and chopped off all the copper from the engine,--doubtless in order to
+sell it to some junk dealer!
+
+"It took me a week or more to repair the machine; then some one got in
+and broke a piece out of the wheel, in experimenting with it; and then
+two wheels, cast one after the other, were damaged by the carelessness
+of the turner. I was thoroughly disgusted and discouraged; but, being
+determined that I would not be balked entirely, I changed the engine so
+that the power could be applied through the ordinary connection with a
+crank.[5]
+
+"At last all was ready; and, on a Monday, we started,--six in the
+engine, and thirty-six on the car which I took in tow. We went up an
+average grade of eighteen feet to the mile; made the thirteen miles to
+Ellicott's Mills in one hour and twelve minutes; and came back in
+fifty-seven minutes. The result of that experiment was that the bonds
+of the railroad company were sold at once, and there was no longer any
+doubt as to the success of the road."
+
+The Tom Thumb continued for several weeks to make trips to Ellicott's
+Mills; and on one occasion (September 18, 1830) ran a race from Riley
+House into Baltimore (about nine miles) with a light car, drawn on a
+parallel track by a gray horse noted for speed and endurance. The
+contest was planned by the stagecoach proprietors of Baltimore, with the
+view of demonstrating that nothing could be gained by the substitution
+of steam for horse power on the railroad. The gray horse won the race,
+but not until after the Tom Thumb had passed him, and only by reason of
+a temporary breakdown of the machine, which caused a delay too great to
+be subsequently made up. Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection of the
+event, as given fifty-five years later, was that "they tried a little
+race one day, but it didn't amount to anything. It was rather funny; and
+the locomotive got out of gear."
+
+Mr. Latrobe says of the Tom Thumb:--
+
+"The machine was not larger than the hand cars used by workmen to
+transfer themselves from place to place; and as the speaker now recalls
+its appearance, the only wonder is that so apparently insignificant a
+contrivance should ever have been regarded as competent to the smallest
+results. But Mr. Cooper was wiser than many of the wisest around him.
+His engine could not have weighed a ton; but he saw in it a principle
+which the forty-ton engines of to-day have but served to develop and
+demonstrate. The boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine was not as large as the
+kitchen boiler attached to many a range in modern mansions. It was of
+about the same diameter, but not much more than half as high. It stood
+upright in the car, and was filled above the furnace, which occupied the
+lower section, with vertical tubes. The cylinder was but three and one
+half inches in diameter; and speed was got up by gearing. No natural
+draft could have been sufficient to get up steam in so small a boiler;
+and Mr. Cooper used, therefore, a blowing apparatus, driven by a drum,
+attached to one of the car wheels, over which passed a cord, that, in
+its turn, worked a pulley on the shaft of the blower. The contrivance
+for dispensing with a crank, though its general appearance is
+recollected, the speaker cannot describe with any accuracy; nor is it
+important,--it came to nothing. . . .
+
+"In a patent case, tried many years afterwards, the boiler of Mr.
+Cooper's engine became, in some connection which has been forgotten,
+important as a piece of evidence. It was hunted for, and found among
+some old rubbish at Mount Clare. It was difficult to imagine that it had
+even generated steam enough to drive a coffee mill, much less that it
+had performed the feats here narrated."
+
+After this experimental demonstration, the Tom Thumb retired into
+honorable but obscure repose in its maker's warehouse at New York, from
+which it emerged, fifty years later, to take part in the centennial
+celebration of the beginning of the commercial history of Baltimore
+(that place having been made a port of entry in 1780). According to a
+contemporary report of the festival, "in the vast procession, Mr. Cooper
+and his little Tom Thumb locomotive were the two most conspicuous
+objects, and received all the honors which could be paid by a quarter of
+a million of enthusiastic people."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] These and other statements in this chapter are taken from a lecture,
+delivered March 23, 1868, before the Maryland Institute, by Hon. J. H.
+B. Latrobe, giving his personal recollections of the early history of
+the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
+
+[4] Manuscript of his _Reminiscences_.
+
+[5] This was the sacrifice of a favorite invention to immediate
+practical considerations, which has been mentioned above as an instance
+of Mr. Cooper's common sense.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS
+
+
+PETER COOPER'S acquaintance with the affairs of New York city ranged
+from the time when, as a child, he was taken by his mother to see the
+last remaining fragments of the stockade erected by the early
+inhabitants for protection against the Indians, to the full metropolitan
+glory of the decade of his death. This wonderful municipal history is
+too commonly regarded from a special standpoint, as if it were but the
+record of a continually renewed and often unsuccessful struggle against
+corrupt and incompetent city government. Contests of this kind, under
+democratic institutions, always occupy more space in the press, and make
+more noise in public oratory, than the quiet but steady progress of
+commercial undertakings, and the labors of unselfish citizens for
+education, art, and social improvement, which go on beneath the
+turbulent surface. Americans have long suffered under the unjust
+imputation of peculiar devotion to "the almighty dollar." The fact is
+that in no other country do individuals give so much or do so much
+without pecuniary reward--whether for personal friendship or for public
+spirit--as in the United States. The munificence of private benefactions
+and endowments, far surpassing the government support given in other
+nations to similar institutions, furnish an abundant proof of the first
+half of this proposition; while the other half is proved by the
+innumerable boards, committees, and other organized bodies, to which
+active business men give time and thought without remuneration.
+
+This spirit has never been wholly missed in public affairs, even in the
+city of New York, so often charged with the lack of it. All the great
+features of its municipal progress, even those which have been, at some
+stage, tainted with lamentable corruption, have been originated or
+supported by unselfish public spirit. It might even be said that
+without this support, innocently given and deceitfully misused, the
+schemers for private gain could not have achieved their periodical and
+temporary successes.
+
+Peter Cooper was an illustrious example of good citizenship in this
+respect. First elected to public office as "assistant alderman," in
+1828, he turned his attention immediately upon the subject most
+important to the growth and welfare of a city, yet most likely to be
+neglected until it is forced upon the community as an unwelcome
+necessity,--namely, the water supply. Up to that time, New York had
+depended upon the springs of Manhattan Island, some of which supplied
+water, conveyed through the streets by means of wooden pipes (bored
+logs), while most of them were utilized by means of pumps only, to which
+the inhabitants sent for their supply.[6]
+
+Mr. Cooper induced the water committee, of which he had been appointed a
+member, to visit Philadelphia and inspect the works by which the water
+of the Schuylkill was raised to a high reservoir, and thence distributed
+in iron pipes throughout that city, and then to examine the Croton and
+Bronx rivers, for the purpose of ascertaining what these streams could
+supply. The season being dry, the rivers were so low that Mr. Cooper was
+not satisfied of their capacity to furnish the needed quantity; so he
+investigated further, on his own account, the watershed (then a
+wilderness) of the Hackensack River in New Jersey, and subsequently
+submitted to the board of aldermen plans and models, illustrating a
+scheme for the supply of water to New York from that region, by means of
+pipes laid under the North River.
+
+To the end of his life, Mr. Cooper adhered to his preference for this
+method of conveying water across river channels, as compared with
+elevated aqueducts, like the "high bridge" subsequently constructed
+across the Harlem River. And in this particular, his intuitive
+engineer's judgment was not at fault, although the classic example of
+the Romans, who spent untold labor and time in building aqueducts, where
+buried conduits would have been both cheaper and better, still dominated
+the professional world. But Peter Cooper furnished another example of
+his practical wisdom, by sacrificing his superior theory for the sake of
+the useful result contemplated. Thorough study showed that, although the
+Croton region could not be relied upon at all times for an immediately
+adequate water supply, yet its average through the year was sufficient
+for the purpose, so that the creation, by means of higher dams, of
+large storage reservoirs, would solve the pressing problem. This plan
+was ultimately adopted, and has been pursued with suitable enlargements,
+ever since. Peter Cooper was made chairman of the water committee,--a
+position which he retained until some years after the Croton system was
+completed.
+
+In the procurement of iron pipes for the system of distribution, and
+their proper testing before acceptance, his integrity and intelligence
+were specially effective in protecting the interests of the city, by
+securing the best material at the lowest cost. While Mr. Cooper was a
+strong "protectionist," favoring the encouragement of American
+industries, he never recognized any distinctions among Americans. In his
+patriotic thought, the unit to be regarded was not the city or the State
+of New York, but the United States of America; and he earnestly opposed
+the contention of the New York iron founders, that contracts for the
+pipe of the Croton system ought not to be made with inhabitants of
+another State. His arguments prevailed; and the pipe was ordered from a
+Philadelphia manufacturer, who offered a better article at a lower
+price.
+
+During Mr. Cooper's official service, and not without his active aid and
+advice (though his personal attention was mainly given to the water
+department), the beginnings of an organized police and fire service were
+established. When he was first elected to office the city was guarded by
+watchmen, who served four hours every night for seventy-five cents.
+Every householder was expected to have leathern buckets in his hall, and
+in case of an alarm of fire to throw them into the street, so that the
+citizens voluntarily running to the rescue could form a line to the
+nearest pump, and, passing the water by means of the buckets, supply the
+tank of the small hand-engine, which then squirted it upon the burning
+building. It is needless to detail here the steps by which out of this
+crude beginning the present effective New York Fire Department has been
+perfected. Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was promoted,
+and its future importance was foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his
+public-spirited colleagues.
+
+But a still more profoundly important element of municipal and national
+progress, in which the participation of Peter Cooper was active and
+influential, was the free public school system in New York. This system
+was originally planted by the great mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton,
+to whom the State is indebted for the Erie Canal, and for many other
+plans and impulses scarcely less significant. While Clinton was an
+advocate of universal suffrage, he perceived the danger of granting this
+power to an ignorant and largely foreign population; and in 1805 he
+secured a charter for "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the
+City of New York for the Education of Such Poor Children as do not
+Belong to, or are not Provided for by, Any Religious Society."
+
+The appeal of this society to "the affluent and charitable of every
+denomination of Christians" was liberally answered, and by December,
+1809, a school capable of accommodating five hundred children had been
+erected upon a purchased site. This was the beginning in New York city
+of the free school system, over which for twenty-five years De Witt
+Clinton presided. During that period the schools, supported by generous
+private contributions, and also after a while by a state tax, steadily
+increased in number, efficiency, and public favor. Peter Cooper had been
+always a zealous supporter of these schools, but not until 1838 did he
+become--by election as a trustee of the Free School Society--officially
+connected with them. It was a critical period in their history. The
+original national debt of the Union had been recently extinguished, and
+a considerable surplus had been returned to the contributing States, of
+which New York devoted its share to educational purposes, thus largely
+increasing the fund for the city. In 1822, sixteen years before, the
+common council had made the free schools "unsectarian," excluding from
+the benefits of the fund all institutions of denominational character.
+The various sects had submitted reluctantly to this decision so long as
+the fund was too small to be divided among them; but its sudden
+enlargement encouraged an attempt to secure appropriations for parochial
+schools.
+
+In his first annual message Governor Seward recommended to the
+legislature the establishment of schools in which the children of
+foreigners might be "instructed by teachers speaking the same language
+with themselves and professing the same faith." The Roman Catholic
+community, acting at once upon this suggestion, sent a deputation to the
+New York common council demanding for their schools "a pro rata share"
+of the educational fund, to which as taxpayers they contributed.
+
+In the resistance made to this claim by the Free School Society Mr.
+Cooper took a prominent and ardent part. The advocates of unsectarian
+public schools were victorious; but the controversy continued to agitate
+the State until the passage by the legislature in 1842 of an act
+establishing in New York city a new board of education to control the
+schools supported from the funds of the State, and at the same time
+forbidding the support from this fund of schools in which "any religious
+sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced."
+The Free School Society, resenting and distrusting this new (and in some
+respects complicated) arrangement, continued its separate activity for
+eleven years; but in 1853, the unsectarian character of the public
+schools of New York having been established beyond question, the society
+and the board of education were by common consent amalgamated by
+statute. At the final meeting of the society Peter Cooper delivered the
+valedictory address, the language of which indicates that not without
+apprehension did he contemplate the surrender of the public schools to
+the exclusive control of a body of officials likely to be more or less
+influenced by partisan or political considerations.
+
+Yet his characteristic common sense came again in this instance to the
+front. The moral which he drew from his doubts and fears was that "the
+stewardship we are about to resign is not a reprieve from the
+responsibilities of the future." And in obedience to this conviction he
+accepted, with fourteen of his old colleagues, membership in the board
+of education, of which he served for two years as vice-president,
+resigning in January, 1855, at which time he had formed and begun to
+carry out the great plan of an institution for free popular education
+with which his name is now forever associated.
+
+Many years later Mr. Cooper became the president of the Citizens'
+Association of New York, which he supported with untiring enthusiasm and
+lavish expenditure, and which in its day did good work in securing for
+the city an efficient fire department, boards of health, docks, and
+education, and an improved charter. Mr. Cooper retired in 1873, and the
+association died soon after, to be revived in other organizations, which
+have from time to time continued the perennial battle for good
+government in New York begun by him.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] A curious survival of this state of things is the Manhattan Company,
+which secured from the legislature a perpetual charter, so skillfully
+framed (by Aaron Burr) that, although it grants much more extensive
+powers than could now be obtained by a corporation, it cannot be
+successfully assailed so long as the fundamental condition is
+fulfilled,--namely, that the company shall be prepared to furnish water
+at all times, on demand. It is said that, in compliance with this
+requirement, a small steam pump is kept continually running, in
+connection with a short system of pipes, somewhere near the City Hall,
+and that the company stands ready to furnish water to any
+applicant--only, the charter does not fix the price which it may exact!
+So far as I know, the only use now made of the extensive powers granted
+by this famous charter is the maintenance of the Manhattan Bank. A few
+years ago, excavations in lower Broadway brought to light bored logs,
+which were supposed to be relics of the old "Manhattan" system.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART
+
+
+IN many respects the industrial conditions under which Peter Cooper
+began his career had been revolutionized before he finished it. The
+apprentice system has well-nigh passed away; and the old freedom with
+which an intelligent, industrious, and ambitious young man could turn
+from one occupation to another, seeking that road which offered greatest
+promise of preferment, is greatly hampered by the modern regime of
+"organized labor," which, whatever its advantages, presents its own
+peculiar perils for the workingman. But it remains forever true that
+under either of these systems, or any others that can be evolved or
+invented, knowledge is power, and the bestowal of it is the one gift
+which neither pauperizes the recipient nor injures the community.
+
+As a struggling young apprentice, Peter Cooper regarded with intense
+sympathy the needs and limitations of the class to which he belonged.
+But his notion of a remedy was not that of paternal legislation, or
+belligerent organization, or social reconstruction. To his conception
+the atmosphere of personal liberty and responsibility furnished by the
+new democratic republic, offering free scope to individual endeavor and
+rewarding individual merit, was the best that could be asked.
+
+What he dreamed of doing was simply to assist these social conditions by
+providing for those who were handicapped by circumstances the means of
+power and opportunity, to be utilized by their own assiduity. This plan
+included not only what he then thought to be the most effective system
+for intellectual improvement, but also provision for such innocent
+entertainment as would supersede the grosser forms of recreation, which
+involved the waste of money and health.
+
+Walking up the Bowery Road--then the stage route to Boston, but now a
+crowded down-town street--he selected in the suburbs of the city the
+site for his great institution; and, as he accumulated the necessary
+funds, he bought at intervals lot after lot at the intersection of Third
+and Fourth Avenues, until he had acquired the entire block, paying for
+his latest purchases (made after the neighborhood had been solidly built
+up and had become a centre of business) very high prices compared with
+those he had paid at the beginning. At last (in 1854) he commenced the
+erection of a six-story fire-proof building of stone, brick, and iron.
+This work occupied several years, and during its progress a period of
+great financial distress threatened to interrupt it. But he persisted in
+the undertaking, at great risk to his private business; and the building
+was finished at a cost (including that of the land) of more than six
+hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper,
+together with the legacy provided by his will, and doubled by his heirs,
+and still later donations from his family and immediate relatives, make
+up a total of more than double that amount.[7]
+
+Up to the time when the building was completed Mr. Cooper had taken
+little advice as to the details of his project. Its outlines in his mind
+were those which he had conceived a quarter-century before, and though
+he was doubtless conscious that new social and industrial conditions had
+intervened which would require some modifications of his plan, he had
+not formulated such changes.
+
+The classes which he wished especially to reach were those who, being
+already engaged in earning a living by labor, could scarcely be expected
+to take regular courses in instruction; and the idea of such instruction
+appears to have been at the beginning subordinate in his mind. He had a
+strong impression that young mechanics and apprentices, instead of
+wasting their time in dissipation, should improve their minds during the
+intervals of labor; and not unnaturally his first thought as to the
+means of such improvement turned to those things which had aroused and
+stimulated his own mind. Probably he did not realize that the mass of
+men were not like himself, and that something more than mere suggestion
+or opportunity would be required to develop the mental powers and
+enlarge the knowledge of the average workingman. However that may be,
+the original vague design of Mr. Cooper was something like this:--
+
+There was in the city of New York a famous collection of curiosities
+known as Scudder's Museum. Barnum's Museum afterwards took its place;
+but that, too, has long since disappeared; and the small so-called
+museums now scattered through the city but faintly remind old
+inhabitants of the glories of Scudder's or Barnum's in their prime.
+These establishments contained all sorts of curiosities, arranged
+without much reference to scientific use,--wax-works, historical relics,
+dwarfs, giants, living and stuffed animals, etc. There was also a
+lecture-room, devoted principally to moral melodrama; and on an upper
+floor a large room was occupied by the cosmorama,--an exhibition of
+pictures, usually of noteworthy scenery, foreign cities, etc., which
+were looked at through round holes, enhancing the effect of their
+illumination.
+
+Peter Cooper doubtless often lingered in these museums, receiving the
+inspiration which came from visions of a world much wider than his
+individual horizon, from the curious and wonderful works of nature, and
+from the works of man in former times and in foreign lands. From the
+queer mechanical devices exhibited by inventors to the "Happy Family"
+and the cosmorama, everything was full to his quick sympathy of
+intellectual, moral, or sentimental suggestion; and no doubt he felt,
+after an hour of such combined wonder and reflection, a satisfying sense
+of time well spent.
+
+He wished that this means of mental improvement and recreation combined
+might be freely afforded to those whose scanty earnings would not permit
+them otherwise to make frequent use of it, and he resolved that the
+museum and the cosmorama should be included in his institution.
+
+Another agency of which Mr. Cooper had made fruitful use, and the
+efficacy of which he highly appreciated, was conversation and debate. If
+people could be brought together and made to talk he thought they would
+learn a great deal from each other. In this he had undoubtedly grasped
+one of the great principles of progress. To meet and interchange our
+ideas of books and by personal discussions is indeed the mightiest
+factor of modern improvement. But the mere meeting to talk _about_
+things unless it is combined with the disposition and the apparatus for
+_studying_ things is but barter without production, and may degenerate
+to a barren exchange of words, as unprofitable as that described in the
+Yankee proverb, "swapping jackknives in a garret." This aspect of the
+truth Mr. Cooper doubtless came to appreciate; but at the outset,
+habituated as he was to get ideas from everybody he met and everything
+he saw, it seemed to him that free discussions would be an unmixed
+benefit to all, and he resolved that his institution should contain
+rooms, devoted to the several handicrafts, where the practitioners of
+each could meet and "exchange views."
+
+It was also his intention that the lower part of the building he erected
+should be occupied by stores and offices, the annual rent of which
+should pay the running expenses of the institution. In the course of
+time the Cooper Union came to need for full efficiency both more money
+than this source would supply and more room than was left to it after
+subtracting the rooms thus rented. These needs have now been met in some
+measure by further endowments, so that before long the whole building
+will be devoted to educational uses. But the wisdom, at that time, of
+Mr. Cooper's plan has been vindicated by the great work done with the
+modest means thus provided.
+
+The building of the Cooper Union represented his original ideas. Above
+the shops and offices to be rented was an immense room intended for the
+museum. A large part of the building was cut up into small meeting-rooms
+for the conferences of the trades; in an upper story another great room
+was provided for the cosmorama; and the flat roof was to be safely
+inclosed with a balustrade, so that on pleasant days or evenings the
+frequenters of the institution might sit or promenade there, partake of
+harmless refreshments, listen to agreeable music,[8] and enjoy the
+magnificent prospect of the city below,--the heights beyond the East
+River on one side, the Hudson on the other, and the magnificent
+island-studded harbor.
+
+A noteworthy feature of this scheme was the complete obliteration of all
+distinctions of class, creed, race, or sex among its beneficiaries. It
+is a significant fact that through nearly half a century, while these
+distinctions have been the subjects of vehement and sometimes bitter
+social and political discussion, the Cooper Union has gone quietly on
+educating its thousands of pupils without the least embarrassment in its
+discipline, and apparently without even the consciousness on the part of
+its founder or its trustees that in this perfect solution of what was
+supposed to be a difficult problem they had accomplished anything
+extraordinary.
+
+When Mr. Cooper, consulting with wise and practical advisers, addressed
+himself at last to the final arrangement of details, he surrendered one
+after another many parts of his youthful design. The name, "The Cooper
+Union for the Advancement of Science and Art," epitomized this change.
+His primary purpose was unchanged; but he perceived that systematic
+education would be of more value to the class he sought to aid than mere
+amusement or miscellaneous talk. The great free reading-room of the
+Cooper Union was substituted for the museum; the conversation parlors
+for the various trades became class-rooms for instruction; the cosmorama
+yielded to lecture-halls and laboratories; and the roof was abandoned to
+the weather. To all these changes, and to many other novelties adopted
+afterwards, Mr. Cooper was reconciled by one conclusive argument;
+namely, the proof afforded by their results that the Cooper Union was
+giving to the working classes that which they needed most and most
+desired. Now and then perhaps a sigh might escape him for the dream of
+his youth. I remember one occasion when I accompanied him to the roof of
+the building, where some new construction was going on which he wished
+to inspect. The old man stood for some time admiring the view in all
+directions, and at last, recalling how he had once imagined happy crowds
+enjoying the delights of that "roof-garden," and casting a mournful
+glance at the central spot where the band was to have been, he said,
+"Sometimes I think my first plan was the best!"[9] But such regrets did
+not occupy his mind. He was satisfied to know that the institution he
+had founded, building better than he knew, had proved its fitness by its
+success in the eager and grateful use made of it by those for whose
+benefit it was intended and in the actual evidences of such benefit.
+Every year managers of the different departments took pains to report to
+him instances in which students already earning wages had increased
+their earnings through the added knowledge or skill acquired in the
+evening classes; and this was the feature of the annual statements upon
+which he dwelt with the greatest satisfaction.
+
+The charter of the Cooper Union was finally adopted in its present form
+by the legislature of the State of New York, April 13, 1859; and the
+deed of trust, executed in compliance therewith, on the 29th day of the
+same month, by Peter Cooper and his wife, Sarah, conveyed to the board
+of trustees the title to "all that piece and parcel of land bounded on
+the west by Fourth Avenue, on the north by Astor Place, on the east by
+Third Avenue, and on the south by Seventh Street, . . . to be forever
+devoted to the advancement of science and art, in their application to
+the varied and useful purposes of life."
+
+Even through this dry legal phraseology, it is not difficult to discern
+the frank and simple joy of the patient enthusiast, who was at last able
+to speak of the land which he had laboriously acquired, lot by lot,
+through many years, and the building which he had raised, stone by
+stone, through many more, as _one_ "piece or parcel," his to dedicate
+forever.
+
+The delivery of this deed to the board of trustees was accompanied with
+a long letter, setting forth the wishes, hopes, and plans of the
+grantor, in the formal and diffuse rhetoric peculiar to his generation,
+and, perhaps, too much contemned by ours. To say the least, we are no
+more warranted in despising the utterances of noble, self-sacrificing
+philanthropists, because they are clothed in phrases now deemed verbose
+and stilted, than we would be in disparaging the deeds of historic
+heroes, because they wore armor now antiquated and struck their doughty
+blows with weapons obsolete. When Peter Cooper wrote, in the letter now
+before me, "The great object I desire to accomplish by the establishment
+of an institution devoted to the advancement of science and art is to
+open the volume of nature by the light of truth--so unveiling the laws
+and methods of Deity that the young may see the beauties of creation,
+enjoy its blessings, and learn to love the Being 'from whom cometh every
+good and perfect gift,'"--he was not guilty of cant, because cant is the
+use of language expressing an emotion which the user does not really
+feel. And the same may be said of the elaborate additional exposition,
+contained in this letter, of the writer's faith in God and man, and of
+his confident hope in the future of his race, and particularly of his
+country.
+
+The letter shows some traces still of his original plan. Thus, he
+writes:--
+
+"In order most effectually to aid and encourage the efforts of youth to
+obtain useful knowledge, I have provided the main floor of the large
+hall on the third story for a reading-room, literary exchange, and
+scientific collections--the walls around that floor to be arranged for
+the reception of books, maps, paintings, and other objects of interest.
+And when a sufficient collection of the works of art, science, and
+nature can be obtained, I propose that glass cases shall be arranged
+around the walls of the gallery of the said room, forming alcoves around
+the entire floor for the preservation of the same. In the window spaces
+I propose to arrange such cosmoramic and other views as will exhibit in
+the clearest and most forcible light the true philosophy of life."
+
+Other characteristic paragraphs are here quoted,--the whole letter being
+too long for full republication.
+
+"To manifest the deep interest and sympathy I feel in all that can
+advance the happiness and better the condition of the female portion of
+the community, and especially of those who are dependent on honest labor
+for support, I desire the trustees to appropriate two hundred and fifty
+dollars yearly to assist such pupils of the female school of design as
+shall, in their careful judgment, by their efforts and sacrifices in the
+performance of duty to parents or to those that Providence has made
+dependent on them for support, merit and require such aid. My reason for
+this requirement is not so much to reward as to encourage the exercise
+of heroic virtues that often shine in the midst of the greatest
+suffering and obscurity without so much as being noticed by the passing
+throng.
+
+"In order to better the condition of women and to widen the sphere of
+female employment, I have provided seven rooms to be forever devoted to
+a female school of design, and I desire the trustees to appropriate out
+of the rents of the building fifteen hundred dollars annually towards
+meeting the expenses of said school.
+
+"It is the ardent wish of my heart that this school of design may be the
+means of raising to competence and comfort thousands of those that might
+otherwise struggle through a life of poverty and suffering. . . .
+
+"Desiring, as I do, to use every means to render this institution useful
+through all coming time, and believing that editors of the public press
+have it in their power to exert a greater influence on the community for
+good than any other class of men of equal number, it is therefore my
+sincere desire that editors be earnestly invited to become members of
+the society of arts to be connected with this institution. . . .
+
+"It is my desire, also, that the students shall have the use of one of
+the large rooms (to be assigned by the trustees) for the purpose of
+useful debates. I desire and deem it best to direct that all these
+lectures and debates shall be exclusive of theological and party
+questions, and shall have for their constant object the causes that
+operate around and within us, and the means necessary and most
+appropriate to remove the physical and moral evils that afflict our
+city, our country, and humanity." . . .
+
+Other paragraphs indicate his plan that the students shall, in the first
+instance, frame the rules which shall control the discipline of the
+institution. Thus he says:--
+
+"It is my desire, and I hereby ordain, that a strict conformity to rules
+deliberately formed by a vote of the majority of the students, and
+approved by the trustees, shall forever be an indispensable requisite
+for continuing to enjoy the benefits of this institution. I now most
+earnestly entreat each and every one of the students of this
+institution, through all coming time, to whom I have intrusted this
+great responsibility of framing laws for the regulation of their conduct
+in their connection with the institution, and by which any of the
+members may lose its privileges, to remember how frail we are, and how
+liable to err when we come to sit in judgment on the faults of others,
+and how much the circumstances of our birth, our education, and the
+society and country where we have been born and brought up, have had to
+do in forming us and making us what we are."
+
+In this scheme Mr. Cooper anticipated the plan of self-government now
+followed in some of our colleges; and while he expected too much of the
+students of the Cooper Union, and was himself afterwards obliged to
+consent to the restriction of their autonomy, it may be fairly said that
+the spirit of his hope and exhortation has never ceased to be felt; and,
+to the great honor of the Cooper Union, it may be recorded that
+questions of discipline have been well-nigh unknown within its walls.
+
+This noble trust was accepted by a body of men who have discharged it
+with unwearied fidelity, zeal and wisdom. The original board consisted
+of Mr. Cooper, his son Edward Cooper, his son-in-law Abram S. Hewitt,
+and John E. Parsons, Wilson G. Hunt, and Daniel F. Tiemann. Three of
+these, Messrs. Cooper, Hewitt, and Tiemann, have been mayors of the city
+of New York. All of them were well-known and eminent citizens, burdened
+with the duties of active business; and the time they gave so freely to
+the management of the Cooper Union was not the superfluity of leisure.
+The difficulty with "business men" too often is, that, when nominally
+charged with the administration of organized charities, they slight the
+work because they have not time to attend to it. But the United States
+can show not a few instances in which the affairs of religious,
+educational, or benevolent institutions are carefully managed by the
+active directors of great private enterprises; and their management,
+when it is thus thorough, is generally much better than that of literary
+or philanthropic amateurs. This is conspicuously shown in the history of
+the Cooper Union.[10]
+
+This is not the place for a detailed account of the development of the
+Cooper Union, or even of its present scope and prospective operations.
+Such an account would worthily occupy a separate volume; for the
+institution, in the hands of its wise directors, was a pioneer and model
+in many respects in which later enterprises, with larger means, have,
+perhaps, surpassed it. I must content myself here with brief mention of
+a few particulars.
+
+The immense free reading-room, with its average daily attendance of
+nearly 1500 to 2000 persons, was Mr. Cooper's special delight; and well
+it might be so; for the sight is one almost without a parallel--not in
+the architecture, size, or furnishing of the place, but in the extent
+and constancy of its use by the public. Entrance is free to all who are
+not unclean, intoxicated, or disorderly. In the main, the privileges
+thus given are not abused, but occasionally the evils almost inseparable
+from so large an attendance have been felt. At one time, the curator
+earnestly represented to the trustees the necessity of doing something
+to check the mutilation of books--a practice which public librarians
+know well as one of their most troublesome foes. It appeared that some
+unknown persons, who combined a love of the beautiful in language with a
+barbaric ignorance of it in conduct, were accustomed to slash out with
+their penknives favorite passages of poetry for preservation, treating
+in this matter newspapers and books alike. It was found difficult to
+keep whole the volumes of Tennyson and Longfellow. But a more frequent
+and injurious practice was the cutting out of plates from illustrated
+books. This was not for love of art, as the other for love of poetry.
+The object was to sell such engravings for two or three cents each to
+the print-shops in the city, where they were bought by refined amateurs,
+for the purpose of "illustrating" special volumes. This fashionable
+hobby has been the indirect cause of the ruin of many a choice book; and
+buyers of fine old editions are well aware that they must look well to
+their bargains, lest they find that the thief, at the bidding of the
+"collector," has plundered the volumes of the plates which once adorned
+them.
+
+When this subject came up for discussion in the board of trustees, Mr.
+Cooper was so full of pity for the poor fellows, who were obliged to
+sell stolen engravings at two cents a piece to keep body and soul
+together, that he could scarcely be brought to take a severe view of the
+offense. Nor was he willing (and in this his fellow-trustees agreed with
+him) to impose any restriction or censorship upon admittance to the
+reading-room. Even if the books suffered, the room must continue to be
+free. The great mass of well-behaved people must not be annoyed by
+measures intended to exclude a few rogues. The result vindicated the
+sagacity, as well as the charity, of this view. The officers in charge,
+not being permitted to adopt any sweeping measures of prevention, simply
+redoubled their vigilance, and finally caught one or two offenders and
+"made examples of them;" and the nuisance was immediately abated, though
+perhaps not entirely and permanently abolished.
+
+The report of 1900, after mentioning the great (legitimate) wear and
+tear of the books, of which 12,000 had to be re-bound, adds:--
+
+"The decorum of the visitors has been excellent, and it is remarkable,
+in view of such a very large number of persons visiting the room, that
+so few mutilations and injuries occur to the periodicals and books, and
+that so few books, probably not more than half a dozen in the course of
+a year, and those of small consequence, are stolen."
+
+It seems then, after all, that Peter Cooper's faith in the people was
+justified.
+
+The great hall in the basement is another noteworthy feature, and worthy
+of wider imitation than it has yet received. Such a hall, if located
+upstairs in such a building, would have been open to three objections:
+it would have monopolized, for occasional use only, space which was
+required for constant use; it would have been intolerably noisy, by
+reason of the roar and rattle in the streets which surround the building
+on all sides; and it would have been dangerous, as all such places are,
+when great audiences must make their exit by going down stairs. Nothing
+has ever been invented that will prevent people from being crushed and
+trampled when they are crowding down a stairway. In all these respects,
+the great hall of the Cooper Union is admirable. It occupies space not
+otherwise valuable. It is quiet, and acoustically perfect. The means of
+exit and entrance are ample and safe. Even in case of an unreasoning
+panic, there is little danger that a crowd, tumbling up the stone
+stairways to the street, would cause the horrible maiming and killing
+which so often attend the efforts of a frightened multitude to get down.
+Finally, the ventilation is excellent, for the simple reason that
+natural or automatic ventilation of such a large, low basement room
+could not be expected, and consequently mechanical ventilation by means
+of a large fan, run by steam power, was provided. The efficiency of this
+system has sometimes been severely tested. On one occasion, during a
+scientific lecture, the experimental illustrations of which were on a
+large and imposing scale, the learned professor on the platform had the
+misfortune to crack an immense glass jar, in which he was exhibiting the
+brilliant combustion of phosphorus in oxygen gas. The white fumes of
+phosphorous acid floated out into the air, and began to diffuse
+themselves through the hall towards the ventilation outlets at the sides
+and rear. To one who knew the irritating nature of these fumes it seemed
+inevitable that the hall must be emptied of its crowded audience in a
+few minutes. Already coughing had begun on the front seats, when Mr.
+Hewitt, who was seated on the platform, quickly rose, and pulling a
+cord, reversed the currents of ventilation and opened a new outlet into
+the street, behind and above the platform. The curling clouds of vapor
+paused, wheeled, and retreated, and in another minute the air was
+perfectly pure. The lecturer had not even been interrupted. It was a
+beautiful and timely "experiment" not on the programme, and, to use the
+words of one who was present, "It was just the sort of thing to please
+Peter Cooper to the bottom of his soul."
+
+The great hall was dedicated from the beginning to free speech. Peter
+Cooper may have overestimated the value of mere talk. As I have already
+told, it was his first notion that conversation and discussion were the
+chief things required in education. He came to see that study,
+instruction, and training were equally essential, but he never
+surrendered his faith in free speech; and the great hall was at the
+service of all sects, parties, and classes, religious, philosophical,
+political, scientific, literary, or philanthropic. It has been the scene
+of many memorable meetings and addresses. But nothing in its history has
+been more useful and noteworthy than the series of free popular lectures
+which were given, as part of the operations of the Cooper Union, within
+its walls. These lectures began in 1868, and continued until they were
+adopted by the city as part of the general scheme of free lectures which
+has been so successful during the last few years. In awarding due praise
+to the promoters and managers of this plan, it should not be forgotten
+that the Cooper Union inaugurated it, and maintained it for many years,
+during which the free Saturday night popular lectures in its great hall
+were the only ones of their kind. They covered many sciences and arts,
+chronicles of travel and themes of history and literature. The most
+eminent authors, teachers, investigators, travelers, and orators of the
+generation were comprised in the list of lecturers; and many of them
+performed this service without other reward than the consciousness of
+contributing to a noble charity, and the evident gratitude of the vast
+and eagerly attentive audience.
+
+Mr. Cooper loved to attend these Saturday evening lectures, and an
+arm-chair was always ready for him on the platform. Many a speaker on
+that platform has been surprised by an untimely outburst of applause and
+has turned to discover the cause in the entrance of the beloved founder.
+Often the subject of the evening was beyond his experience or knowledge,
+but that made no difference in his respectful attention, or in the
+benign satisfaction with which he contemplated the attentive audience,
+and realized that they were receiving benefit. I have often felt that
+the scene exhibited almost every Saturday night for many years during
+the latest period of his life could be equaled only by the spectacle
+presented at Ephesus, where the aged St. John the Divine fronted the
+congregation of loving believers, always with his one last message,
+"Little children, love one another."
+
+But sometimes the old man would be intensely interested and aroused by
+the lecture. I remember such an occasion, when I was myself the
+lecturer, and had been laying down, with due scientific decorum and
+diagrams, the "law of storms." At the close of the lecture, Mr. Cooper
+arose, advanced to the front, and gave a vivid and animated description
+of a whirlwind which he had witnessed some seventy years before, which
+was received with rapt attention and tremendous applause. The lecture
+was undoubtedly eclipsed in interest by this unexpected after-piece; but
+the lecturer was amply compensated by his triumph in having thus
+stirred the spirit and aroused the recollections of the dear old
+founder.
+
+With regard to the various schools and classes of the Cooper Union, it
+must suffice to say briefly that under the elastic and comprehensive
+plan of the deed of trust, two objects were constantly kept in view by
+the trustees. In the first place, a complete four years' course was
+always maintained, for the benefit of those who could afford the time
+and who felt the need of such training. In the second place, classes
+were instituted in such special departments as were most likely to be
+useful and most evidently in demand; and with regard to these the demand
+and the evidence of usefulness were followed as guides in determining
+the extent of the facilities offered, up to the capacity and means of
+the institution.
+
+De Morgan, in his "Budget of Paradoxes," tells of an old fellow who,
+wishing to have a chair that would fit him perfectly, sat for a while on
+a mass of shoemaker's wax, which he then carried to a worker in wood,
+and instructed him to "make a seat like that!" This homely illustration
+indicates the manner in which the special classes of the Cooper Union
+have been established, enlarged, and regulated, to meet the evident
+demands of its constituency. It is pleasant to know that the future
+means and sphere of the institution will be enlarged under the same wise
+management.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] Not all of this amount is represented in permanent endowments, since
+large contributions to cover deficits in annual income as compared with
+current expenses, or for special repairs and alterations, do not appear
+under that head. According to the balance-sheet of January 1, 1900, the
+total assets consist of $1,075,428.62, the appraised value of the
+building, furniture, and apparatus; and $947,021.39 in cash on hand or
+investments,--making a total of $2,022,450.01. Of the invested sum
+$953,159.30 is in "special endowments," of which the income only can be
+expended. This fund comprises $200,000 from Peter Cooper and $340,000
+from the family of the late William Cooper, his brother; the remainder
+is made up of smaller gifts (the chief of which are a bequest of $30,000
+from Wilson G. Hunt, one of the original trustees, and $10,000 each from
+Mary Stuart, J. Pierpont Morgan, Morris K. Jesup, and John E. Parsons),
+and one of $300,000 made in December, 1899, by Andrew Carnegie. In
+addition to the aggregate thus made up Hon. Edward Cooper, the son, and
+Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the son-in-law of Peter Cooper, have undertaken to
+furnish a further income of $10,000 per annum; and finally, according to
+the 41st Annual Report of the Trustees (May, 1900), the Cooper Union, as
+residuary legatee under the will of the late John Holstead, will
+ultimately receive between $200,000 and $300,000.
+
+These recent additions to the endowment of the institution will enable
+the trustees to enlarge its usefulness in many ways, and especially
+(being no longer dependent for annual income upon rents) to utilize the
+whole of the building for educational purposes. Yet the total endowment
+will still be modest, as compared with that of many similar institutions
+of later origin.
+
+[8] Old New Yorkers will be reminded of the closing lines of Fitz-Greene
+Halleck's poem,--
+
+          "And there is music twice a week
+           On Scudder's balcony."
+
+[9] There may have been more than a mere sentimental regret in his mind
+at that time; for his inventive intuition had struck out half a century
+before an idea to which the slow thought of his fellows had not yet
+attained,--the plan of utilizing roofs for the purpose of giving to all
+classes an ownership of free air and far distance and boundless sky as
+complete as any landowner could command by fencing off a mountain for
+his own pleasure. As he looked down upon the vast wilderness of roofs
+and thought of the multitude laboring beneath them or trudging through
+the streets ("up one canyon and down another," as old Jim Bridger the
+scout said in St. Louis), ignorant of the upper sphere within reach, he
+might well have felt that one part of his original scheme would still be
+a physical and moral boon to the metropolis. In fact the disappearance
+of the "vacant lots," so numerous in his youth, and so freely available
+as informal parks and playgrounds, had created new necessity for air and
+space. Whether he consciously recalled the hanging gardens of Babylon,
+or the flat roofs universally utilized for social and domestic purposes
+in eastern and southern countries, I do not know. At all events he had
+seized upon a similar idea, and now--nearly a score of years after his
+death--we are waking up to its value. Even the Cooper Union building
+some day, after more pressing needs of equipment shall have been
+satisfied, may be crowned with its garden of rest and outlook.
+
+[10] Of the original board, Peter Cooper was the first to pass away. Mr.
+Hunt and Mr. Tiemann have since died, and Mr. R. Fulton Cutting has been
+elected a trustee. The other vacancies have not been filled.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+NATIONAL POLITICS
+
+
+PETER COOPER'S prominent activity in national politics belongs to two
+periods,--that of the war for the Union, and that of the subsequent
+controversies over questions of financial policy.
+
+As has been explained, he felt his life to be peculiarly identified with
+that of the nation born with him; and the idea that this nation should
+be destroyed in the midst of its triumphant progress was profoundly
+abhorrent to him. Like many other patriots, he was ready to save the
+Union by a compromise, if that were practicable. He advocated the
+purchase and liberation by the government of all the slaves in the
+United States; he promoted a "peace conference" on the very eve of the
+war. But when South Carolina had formally seceded and the gauntlet had
+been cast at the feet of national authority, his course was not
+uncertain. He was a representative of the New York Chamber of Commerce
+in the deputation of thirty leading citizens of New York which visited
+Washington in order to discover what plan Mr. Buchanan (then still
+President) had in view. They got no satisfaction from the President, but
+assured themselves of the firm loyalty of Mr. Seward, then Senator from
+New York.
+
+A few weeks later the bombardment of Fort Sumter put an end to all
+projects of compromise. At the memorable mass meeting held in Union
+Square, New York, shortly after the receipt of this news, Peter Cooper,
+then seventy years old, was among the first to mount the platform. His
+familiar white hairs and kindly face were recognized by the crowd, which
+vociferously called for a speech from him. Stepping to the front, he
+uttered a few ringing sentences which sounded the keynote of the
+meeting. I quote but one or two:--
+
+"We are contending with an enemy not only determined on our destruction
+as a nation, but to build on our ruins a government devoted with all its
+power to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting
+to all the best feelings of humanity,--an institution that enables
+thousands to sell their own children into hopeless bondage.
+
+"Shall it succeed? You say 'No!' and I unite with you in your decision.
+We cannot allow it to succeed. We should spend our lives, our property,
+and leave the land itself a desolation before such an institution should
+triumph over the free people of this country. . . .
+
+"Let us, therefore, unite to sustain the government by every means in
+our power, to arm and equip in the shortest possible time an army of the
+best men that can be found in the country."
+
+From that day on his patriotism never doubted or faltered. When the war
+loan was announced he was the first man at the door of the subtreasury
+in New York waiting to make payment over the counter of all the money
+he had been able to collect without business disaster. "In those days,"
+says a friend, "whenever he had nothing else to do, he would go down to
+the recruiting office and put in a substitute." It is estimated that he
+must have sent, first and last, about a score of soldiers to serve for
+him under the flag.
+
+From the first he urged the emancipation and enlistment of the Southern
+negroes,--a policy which was ultimately adopted with successful results;
+and when in 1864, at the darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger
+of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted that great mass meeting in
+the hall of the Cooper Union which marked the turning-point of the
+struggle, carried the State of New York for Lincoln, and secured the
+triumph of the Union.
+
+After the war was over he presided at another meeting, called to favor
+aid to the disabled soldiers of the nation; and the following paragraph
+quoted from his remarks on that occasion forms a fitting close to this
+brief notice of his patriotic activity:--
+
+"If we required a stronger stimulus to urge us to perform our duty, we
+have only to turn our thoughts back to that fearful day when the armies
+of rebellion had entered Pennsylvania with the intent to subjugate the
+North to their domination. Had they been successful, they would have
+gloried in making us pay for the loss of their slaves and the expenses
+of their war. I trust that the government will not hesitate to tax my
+property and the property of every other man enough to provide for the
+comfort of our disabled soldiers and the families dependent on them for
+support."
+
+In the financial controversies which accompanied and followed the period
+of "reconstruction" after the war, and were involved in the payment and
+adjustment of the national debt, Mr. Cooper appeared as an advocate of
+the "Greenback" party, and did not seem to realize that this was a
+complete reversal of his earlier position as a "hard-money" Democrat. I
+think the clue to this change may be found in his recollection of the
+war waged by Andrew Jackson on the United States Bank, and a vague
+feeling that the national banking system instituted by Secretary Chase
+was open to similar objections. To this may be added his growing
+inclination in favor of "paternal government,"--which in a man so
+thoroughly self-supporting and self-reliant can be explained only by the
+fact that his personal philanthropy overbalanced his political
+philosophy; that he became more anxious to relieve the distress he saw
+than to question the wisdom of measures taken for that purpose. Two
+things are certain: first, that Mr. Cooper's motives in his later
+political course were thoroughly pure and unselfish; and secondly, that
+his utterances and publications in this connection show him to be
+dealing with subjects which he did not understand. This statement is
+made without regard to the merits of the controversy, or the strength of
+the arguments contributed to it by others. The simple truth is that Mr.
+Cooper was too old to make original investigation of such questions,
+intelligently weighing all the modern conditions of industry and
+commerce, in which he was no longer an active participant. He accepted
+in 1876 the nomination of the Greenback party for the presidency; but
+the issue was already practically dead, and he received but 81,740 votes
+out of a total of 8,412,833 cast. Undaunted by this defeat, he continued
+to utter his views. Those who wish to study them in detail may consult
+the volume "Ideas for a Science of Good Government in Addresses,
+Letters, and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff, and Civil
+Service," which he issued at the age of ninety-two, in the last year of
+his life. His own summary of his position, given on page 212 of this
+book, shows that he desired a national legal-tender paper currency,
+irredeemable in coin, but "interconvertible" with government bonds, and
+regulated by law as to volume per capita; a "discriminating" protective
+tariff, "helpful to all the industries of the country, where the raw
+material and the labor can be furnished by our own people;" and a civil
+service divorced from party politics, based on personal fitness, with
+tenure of office during good behavior, moderate salaries, and pensions
+for the aged and sick, and provision for widows and orphans.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE END
+
+
+IN 1874, at the age of eighty-three, Mr. Cooper said at a reception
+given in his honor:--
+
+"When I was born, New York contained 27,000 inhabitants. The upper
+limits of the city were at Chambers Street. Not a single free school,
+either by day or night, existed. General Washington had just entered
+upon his first term as President of the United States, the whole annual
+expenditures of which did not exceed $2,500,000, being about sixty cents
+per head of the population. Not a single steam engine had yet been built
+or erected on the American continent; and the people were clad in
+homespun, and were characterized by the simple virtues and habits which
+are usually associated with that primitive garb. I need not tell you
+what the country now is, and what the habits and the garments of its
+people now are, or that the expenditure, per capita, of the general
+government has increased fifteen-fold. But I have witnessed and taken a
+deep interest in every step of the marvellous development and progress
+which have characterized this century beyond all the centuries which
+have gone before.
+
+"Measured by the achievements of the years I have seen, I am one of the
+oldest men who have ever lived; but I do not feel old, and I propose to
+give you the receipt by which I have preserved my youth.
+
+"I have always given a friendly welcome to new ideas, and I have
+endeavored not to feel too old to learn; and thus, though I stand here
+with the snows of so many winters upon my head, my faith in human
+nature, my belief in the progress of man to a better social condition,
+and especially my trust in the ability of men to establish and maintain
+self-government, are as fresh and as young as when I began to travel the
+path of life.
+
+"While I have always recognized that the object of business is to make
+money in an honorable manner, I have endeavored to remember that the
+object of life is to do good. Hence I have been ready to engage in all
+new enterprises, and, without incurring debt, to risk in their promotion
+the means which I had acquired, provided they seemed to me calculated to
+advance the general good. This will account for my early attempt to
+perfect the steam engine, for my attempt to construct the first American
+locomotive, for my connection with the telegraph in a course of efforts
+to unite our country with the European world, and for my recent efforts
+to solve the problem of economical steam navigation on the canals; to
+all of which you have so kindly referred. It happens to but few men to
+change the current of human progress, as it did to Watt, to Fulton, to
+Stephenson, and to Morse; but most men may be ready to welcome laborers
+to a new field of usefulness, and to clear the road for their progress.
+
+"This I have tried to do, as well in the perfecting and execution of
+their ideas as in making such provision as my means have permitted for
+the proper education of the young mechanics and citizens of my native
+city, in order to fit them for the reception of new ideas, social,
+mechanical, and scientific--hoping thus to economize and expand the
+intellectual as well as the physical forces, and provide a larger fund
+for distribution among the various classes which necessarily make up the
+total of society. If our lives shall be such that we shall receive the
+glad welcome of 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' we shall then
+know that we have not lived in vain."
+
+For nine years after this utterance he continued the peaceful and happy
+life which it describes. When the end came, it was quiet and painless.
+Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and whispering with almost
+his last breath the desire for an increase of his bequest to that other
+well-beloved child, the Cooper Union, he "fell on sleep," April 4, 1883.
+
+On the day of his funeral New York city presented an almost unexampled
+spectacle. All Soul's Unitarian Church, in which his body was
+deposited, early in the morning was thronged with a mighty multitude,
+passing in procession to look upon the beloved face. Eighteen young men
+from the Cooper Union surrounded it, as a guard of honor. A body of 3500
+students of that institution, of both sexes, marched by, casting flowers
+upon the coffin, and followed by delegations from all the municipal and
+charitable organizations of the city, and by uncounted multitudes, whose
+relation to the beloved philanthropist was not official or
+representative, but simply personal.
+
+The busiest streets of New York, through which the funeral procession
+passed on its way to Greenwood Cemetery, beyond the East River, were
+closed to business and hung in black. The flags on all public buildings,
+and on the ships in the harbor, were at half-mast. The bells of all
+churches were tolled. The whole city mourned, as it had not done since,
+eighty years before, the funeral procession of George Washington moved
+through its streets.
+
+If we seek, without affectionate prejudice, to discover the cause of
+this universal grief, affection, and admiration, we shall find, I think,
+that it lies chiefly in two circumstances; namely, the character of
+Peter Cooper as a lover of his kind, and the opportunity afforded him by
+his long life, not only to prove that character, but to become
+personally known to many thousands of those whom he sought unselfishly
+to serve. Few persons except military commanders have such an
+opportunity. The philanthropists who labor in secret, no matter with
+what noble motive, and do not come face to face with their
+beneficiaries, may win the applause of posterity, but cannot expect to
+receive the immediate and personal affection of their contemporaries.
+Least of all do posthumous gifts arouse this sentiment. Peter Cooper,
+above all other claims to renown and gratitude, identified himself with
+his philanthropy, and was known where he was loved.
+
+          "Who gives himself with his gift, feeds three:
+           Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+The original text had the list of books first and then the first title
+page. These were reversed so that the title occurs first in this
+edition.
+
+Page xii, "8" changed to "6" (6. This experience)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter Cooper, by Rossiter W. Raymond
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:29:14 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:29:14 -0700
commit	a18a7d77af3ebc585010567ca04e21fca0257ba5 (patch)
tree	55b21d11fd3f35e0e443887452f3c258fbbaca10