From a Photo. by Elliot & Fry.
I have referred in the early part of this paper to the great love Mr. Cooper had for his mother. When I said "Good-bye" to him it was with a promise—very happily and readily made—to stay for a moment at a certain spot in St. Peter's Street, Canterbury. There stands the Sidney Cooper School of Art—a school Mr. Cooper founded in 1870, giving gratuitous instruction to the students, and subsequently presented to the City of Canterbury in 1882.
"I wanted the youth of Canterbury to have the shorthand of drawing—I had to find it out myself," Mr. Cooper told me.
But there was another reason. At the banquet given in honour of the Royal Academician at his birthplace in October, 1870, Mr. Cooper rose and said:—
"I had but one object—nay, I had two objects—in erecting that Gallery of Art which I have devoted to the inhabitants of my native city and its neighbourhood. The one was to dedicate it to her who fostered me in my years of infancy and youth"—and at the recollection of his mother, the great painter was so overcome that he could not for some time proceed with his remarks—"and I determined to erect it on the very site of my birthplace; and the other object was that the youth of Canterbury who feel a desire for the study of art may avail themselves of those opportunities which were denied to me."
Half an hour after I left Sidney Cooper I was watching the students at work and carrying out the wishes of the thoughtful founder of this excellent institution. But, I must confess to staying longer outside than I did inside. Next door to the school is a quaint old gabled house, striking in all its picturesqueness, and even a stranger would not pass it by without turning to look at it. How much more interesting it becomes when you know that the old-fashioned latticed window on the first floor opens into the room where a certain little fellow first saw the light ninety years ago, and that on the very stone step which leads to the door that same little fellow, a few years later, used to sit with his slate and pencil. Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A., told me so; and he, above all others, ought to know.
Harry How.
