. Little journeys to the homes of the great . h he was unable to impressupon his fellow townsmen. No doubt their indifferenceand opposition tended to crystallize his own § It will not do to say that Peter Cooper was exactlydisgusted with the public-school system of New York,for he, more than any other one man, had evolved it andcarried it forward from very meager beginnings. Democ-racy is a safeguard against tyranny, but it often crampsand hinders the man of genuine initiative. If the entirepublic-school system of the State had been delegatedto Peter Cooper in Eighteen Hundred Fifty, he
. Little journeys to the homes of the great . h he was unable to impressupon his fellow townsmen. No doubt their indifferenceand opposition tended to crystallize his own § It will not do to say that Peter Cooper was exactlydisgusted with the public-school system of New York,for he, more than any other one man, had evolved it andcarried it forward from very meager beginnings. Democ-racy is a safeguard against tyranny, but it often crampsand hinders the man of genuine initiative. If the entirepublic-school system of the State had been delegatedto Peter Cooper in Eighteen Hundred Fifty, he as solecommissioner could and would have set the world apace in pedagogy. Disraelis contention that democracy means the ruleof the worst has in it a basis of truth. Peter Coopersappeals to his colleagues on the School Board fell onidle ears. And so he decided to do the thing himself,and the extent to which he would do it was to be limitedonly by his fortune. Cooper Union was to be a model for every public schoolin America. 255 PETER COOPER. HE block bounded by Third and FourthAvenues and the Bowery was bought up byPeter Cooper, a lot at a time, with the ideaof a model school in mind. When PeterCooper bought the first lot there in Eighteen HundredThirty-six, the site was at the extreme north limit ofthe city. Later, A. T. Stewart was to build his businesspalace near at hand. Cooper offered his block of land to the city, gratis,provided a school would be built according to his offer was smilingly Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, when Peter Cooperwas sixty-one years old, he began the building of hismodel school on his own account. His business affairs had prospered, and besides the glue-factory he was making railroad-iron at Ringwood, NewJersey, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. These mills werevery crude according to our present-day Peter Cooper believed the consumption of ironwould increase. Bridges were then built almost entirelyof wood. Peter Co
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbiography, bookyear19
