Peter Cooper

ition, industry, and genius, and of his own personal ability to make use of these opportunities. Secondly, he was a lover of his fellow men, determined to employ for their benefit the means and powers which he felt himself able to accumulate by thought, toil, and frugal economy. Thirdly, he was even in his philanthropy essentially still an American, intent most of all upon the welfare of those classes of his countrymen with whose struggles and needs his own early life had made him familiar. In other words, while his philanthropy covered a world-wide range, his peculiar mission, as he conceived it, was indissolubly blent with the success of the republic of which he was one of the earliest-born sons.

II

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH

AT a meeting of friends, gathered February 12, 1882, to celebrate his ninety-first birthday anniversary, Mr. Cooper, after expressing his thanks for their congratulatory good wishes, and observing that in his case "length of days had not yet resulted in weariness of sp