William Cullen Bryant, Edward Everett, Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, and every great speaker of the time, spoke here. Victoria Woodhull brought much scandal on the devoted head of Peter Cooper when he allowed her to use the platform to ventilate her peculiar views. Peter Cooper met the criticism by inviting her to come back and speak again. She did so, being introduced by Theodore Tilton. Here came Lincoln, the gaunt and homely, and spoke before he was elected President. His "Cooper Union Speech" is a memorable document, although it was given without notes and afterwards written out by Lincoln, who seemed surprised that any one should care to read it.
The speech given in Cooper Union by Robert G. Ingersoll lifted him from the rank of a Western lawyer to national prominence in a single day. Other men had criticized the Christian religion, but no man of power on a public platform had up to that time in America expressed his abhorrence and contempt for it. The reputation of Ingersoll had preceded him. He had given his lecture in Peoria, then in Chicago, and now he made bold to ask Peter Cooper for permission to use the historic hall. Cooper responded with eagerness. There was talk of a mob when the papers announced an "infidel speech."
The auspicious night came, and Peter Cooper himself introduced the speaker. He sat on the platform during the address, at times applauding vigorously. It was an epoch, but then Peter Cooper was an epoch-making man. Cooper Union is now conducted along the identical lines laid out by its founder.
It is a Free University, dedicated to the People. It has a yearly enrolment of over thirty-five hundred pupils. Only three Universities in America surpass it in numbers. Its courses are designed to cover the needs of practical, busy people. Art, architecture, engineering, business and chemistry are its principal features. Its fine reading-room and library have a yearly attendance of a million visitors. The great hall is used almost every night in the year. And just remember that this has continued for fifty years.
When the building was put up, there were no passenger-elevators in New York, or elsewhere. Peter Cooper's mechanical mind saw that higher buildings would demand mechanical lifts, and so he provided a special elevator-shaft. He saw his prophecy come true, and there is now an elevator in the place he provided. The demand now upon the building overtaxes its capacity.
The influx of foreign population in New York City makes the needs of Cooper Union even more imperative than they were fifty years ago. 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
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.