Cooper Institute

“ Small private attempts at industrial schools for the advancement of women, such as the “Wilson Industrial School” in New York, had been started by the benevolence of individuals as early as 1856; but the first serious attempt to give practical shape to the question of higher education for women was undertaken when Peter Cooper made the advantages of the institute founded by him and bearing his name, free in all its departments, to women as to men. The Cooper Institute, opened to the public in 1859, had its free art classes for women, where art was taught in its application to the industries. ”

“ Passing the Cooper Institute, as the writer does nearly every day, he looks with undiminished interest upon the young men and young women who go in and out of the building; while to attend one of the lectures is a pleasure far greater than that of merely listening. ”

“ The poorest man with a hod on his shoulder carrying brick up a wall begrudged not the philanthropist his carriage as he rode by. No one put the torch to Peter Cooper's glue factory. When on some great popular occasion the masses assembled in the hall of Cooper Institute and its founder came on the platform, there were many hard hands that clapped in vigorous applause. Let the rich stretch forth [pg 356] toward the great masses of England, Ireland, and America as generous and kind a hand as that of Peter Cooper, and the age of dynamite will end. ”

“ There are about 325 private and sectarian schools and academies in New York, with an average annual attendance of about 15,000 or 20,000 pupils, and employing more than 1500 teachers.
The Cooper Institute is an imposing edifice of brown stone, occupying the block bounded by Third and Fourth avenues, and Seventh and Eighth streets. It was erected at a cost of nearly half a million dollars, by Peter Cooper, Esq., an p. 674eminent merchant of New York. The basement is occupied by an immense lecture room, capable of seating several thousand persons. The street floor is taken up with stores. ”

“ The teachers were artists in all but the art of teaching. She believed, however, that the Philadelphia school, if associated with a good collection, would turn out well. But of the Cooper Institute she was not so hopeful. It was rather too philanthropic to be a good school of art. ”

“ He was acquainted with Papa's name, as he had bought his book in London for the library, and appeared familiar with its contents. He said he valued it as filling up a gap in the financial history of America that was not supplied by any work in this country.
Mr. Aspinwall took us afterwards to the Cooper Institute, founded by Mr. Peter Cooper, another very eminent citizen of New York, who has done this good deed in his lifetime. He happened to be there, and as Mr. Aspinwall introduced us to him, he showed us round the building himself. He is a rich ironmonger, and an eccentric man. ”

“ One should visit the Bowery at night, when the workmen and shop girls, having finished their daily labor, are out for recreation and amusement. Then he will gain an idea of one phase of city life and people which he would not obtain otherwise.
At Seventh street, where Third avenue branches off, looking down the Bowery, and occupying the entire block to Eighth street, is Cooper Institute, containing a free library, free reading-room, free schools of art, telegraphy and science, and a hall and lecture room. Peter Cooper was one of the representative men of New York. ”

“ In Quincy, I found two ladies just establishing a high school for girls, whom I have previously mentioned as having pushed through the endowment, for women, of the State University at Lawrence, and having opened a class in modelling in clay, under Professor Volkers. At the Cooper Institute I found more women at work than ever before, and to better advantage. ”

“ He was, in all Christendom, plain Peter Cooper. Why, [pg 352] then, all the flags at half-mast, and the resolutions of common council, and the eulogium of legislatures, and the deep sighs from multitudes who have no adequate way to express their bereavement?
First, he was in some respects the father of American philanthropies. There have been far larger sums donated to the public since this man founded Cooper Institute, but I think that hundreds of the charities were born of his example. Sometimes a father will have a large family of children who grow up to be larger than himself. ”

“ In 1815 the peace with Great Britain, which gave such ecstasies of joy to the whole country, ruined Peter Cooper's business; as it was no longer possible to make cloth in the United States with profit. With three trades at his finger ends, he now tried a fourth, cabinet-making, in which he did not succeed. He moved out of town, and bought the stock of a grocer, whose store stood on the very site of the present Cooper Institute, at that time surrounded by fields and vacant lots. ”

“ It has since drawn to the platform of the Cooper Institute audiences, chiefly of workingmen more or less connected with the labor movement, that have filled its great hall. The spirit that animates its work is shown in its review of the field upon the threshold of its third year. Speaking of the social issues that are hastening toward a settlement, it says: "Society is about to be organized, gradually, wisely, on the lines of the recognition of the brotherhood of man. The People's Institute holds to-day, as no other institution in this city, the confidence of all classes of the working people ”

“ I’m going to the Christian Endeavor meeting in July, and that will give a good chance to study up that part of the city, because the meeting is to be in Madison Square.
David G. Dunlap.
My mother used to be a pupil in Cooper Institute, and when I went to New York a few months ago father took me to see it. It is very large; it cost more than six hundred thousand dollars. Peter Cooper built it about thirty-five years ago; and then he gave three hundred thousand dollars to keep the free library going which belongs to it. They have all sorts of schools in the building. ”

“ Profits from this source almost maintained some of the most expert during their last school years. The students in 1889, and the graduates of May, 1888, earned in this way, during the year, $17,805.
A wise discretionary power given the trustees of the Cooper Institute, “to add such other art or trade to the curriculum as 290would tend to furnish women with suitable employment,” led to the establishment, in 1869, of a class in telegraphy and in 1884, of a stenographic and type-writing class. Both of these combined, educated about one hundred women yearly in those professions. ”

“ His attendance at the lectures of the Institute incidentally led to a new employment, in which undoubtedly Thomas Cooper might have excelled and gained no mean emolument and renown had he chosen to devote himself exclusively to it. Having sent a paragraph report of one of the lectures on chemistry to the Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury, he was waited upon by the editor, Richard Newcomb, and requested to supply intelligence weekly of any affairs of importance in the city, and promised £20 a year for his trouble. ”

“ 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 [xiii] 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. ”

“ Cooper Union, at the upper end of the Bowery, was built in 1854. Peter Cooper, merchant and philanthropist, made the object of his life the establishment of an institution designed especially to give the working [Pg 165] classes opportunity for self-education better than the existing institutions afforded. His store was on the site of the present building, which he founded. By a deed executed in 1859 the institution, with its incomes, he devoted to the instruction and improvement of the people of the United States forever. ”

“ In building and endowing Cooper Union, he outlined a system of education so beneficent that it attracted the attention of the thinking men of the world. And it is even now serving as a model upon which our entire public-school system will yet be founded—a system that works not for culture, for bric-a-brac purposes, but for character and competence. ”

“ The student in art, thanks to the philanthropy of our venerable citizen, Peter Cooper, can, without incurring expense, acquire a knowledge of designing or of wood-engraving which will hardly fail to secure for her a competence. The student in biology will receive her share of attention at a summer school of science on our Atlantic seaboard, or held in connection with some enterprising institution of learning. The student in pharmacy and chemistry can conduct her researches on an equality with men, or, if she prefer, in laboratories controlled and officered in large part by women themselves. ”

“ 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 [74] perfect solution of what was supposed to be a difficult problem they had accomplished anything extraordinary. ”

“ So additional buildings are now under way, and with increased funds from various worthy and noble people, Cooper Union is taking a new lease of life and usefulness. And into all the work there goes the unselfish devotion, the patience and the untiring spirit of Peter Cooper, apprentice, mechanic, inventor, businessman, financier, philosopher and friend of humanity.
ANDREW CARNEGIE [Pg 261]
I congratulate poor young men upon being born to that ancient and honorable degree which renders it necessary that they should devote themselves to hard work. ”

“ Do you not think Peter Cooper was an unusual kind of a man to lower the price of an article just because the world needed it so much?
He was now sixty-four years of age.
He had worked day and night for forty years to build his Free College.
He had bought the ground for it.
And now for five whole years he watched his great, six-story, brown-stone building as it grew.
The man who was once a penniless lad should teach many through these great stones some of the lessons he knew so well.
[141] Some of these are industry, economy and perseverance. ”

“ In the year 1803, a market house was erected in the center of Fair street, about half way between Front and Second streets. The attempt to induce the butchers and the people of the surrounding country to use it, however, failed, and the building was removed into West street, and converted into a school house, in 1809, or soon after the destruction of the Academy by fire.
On the 3d day of April, 1807, a law was passed authorizing the inhabitants of the village of Cooperstown. to elect trustees, under an act of incorporation, which styled the place The Village of Otsego. ”

“ Oh! Miss Temple, how little have you known me!" he cried, dropping on his knees at her feet, and gathering her flowing robe in his arms as if to shield her from the flames. "I have been driven to the woods in despair, but your society has tamed the lion within me. If I have wasted my time in degradation, 'twas you that charmed me to it. If I have forgotten my name and family, your form supplied the place of memory. If I have forgotten my wrongs, 'twas you that taught me charity. No — no — dearest Elizabeth, I may die with you, but I can never leave you!" ”

“ Monsieur Le Quoi, I am your servant. Mr. Grant,” lifting his cap, “I feel indebted to your attention. Gentlemen, I make you acquainted with my child. Yours are names with which she is very familiar.”
“Velcome, velcome Tchooge,” said the elder of the party, with a strong German accent. “Miss Petsy vill owe me a kiss.”
“And cheerfully will I pay It, my good sir,” cried the soft voice of Elizabeth; which sounded, in the clear air of the hills. Like tones of silver, amid the loud cries of Richard. “I have always a kiss for my old friend. Major Hartmann.” ”

“ Cooper was a member of the Class of 1865, Yale College, and for twenty-five years pastor of the South Congregational Church of New Britain, Connecticut. For thirty years he was a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and from 1885 until the time of his death was a Fellow of Yale University, serving on the Corporation as one of the Successors of the Original Trustees.
Not in dumb resignation, We lift our hands on high; Not like the nerveless fatalist, Content to do and die. ”

“ Now, sir, I assert that no experiment is fairly tried, until it be reduced to practical purposes. If, sir, I owned a hundred, or, for that matter, two hundred thousand acres of land, as you do. I would build a sugar house in the village; I would invite learned men to an investigation of the subject — and such are easily to be found, sir; yes, sir, they are not difficult to find — men who unite theory with practice ”

“ Cooper states that he was educated at the university of Cambridge, though at what college does not appear. A passage in a letter of 10 July 1516 suggests that he afterwards proceeded to the university of Ferrara. After the university he probably studied law at Gray's Inn, in the windows of which hall his arms were in Dugdale's time twice blazoned (Orig. Jurid. pp. 300, 307) . ”

“ Thomas Ellison of Albany, and the Patroon, both regents of the university, visited the Cherry Valley academy, and then extended their journey to Cooperstown, where the former preached in the Court House. ”