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]