Education: Free of Charge

In 1859 self-made Millionaire Peter Cooper opened a free school in what was then midtown Manhattan to “improve and elevate the working classes of the City of New York” and to be “forever devoted to the advancement of science and art, in their application to the varied and useful purposes of life.”

To house his school, which he named Cooper Union, the wealthy inventor (a washing machine, the “Tom Thumb” locomotive, a musical cradle that rocked itself) and iron and glue manufacturer had built a handsome five-story structure on Astor Place, hired 21 faculty members. Two thousand artisans and working girls enrolled the first year for the Union’s free courses, e.g., mathematics, chemistry, mechanical philosophy, theoretical and practical mechanics, drawing, vocal music. Cooper established weekly lectures in social philosophy, set up a public library and reading room, and a school of design to train “respectable females” for suitable jobs. To establish and endow Cooper Union, its founder had given $640,000.

Last week Cooper Union celebrated its 90th birthday with a big convocation in its historic Great Hall.* Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and RCA Board Chairman David Sarnoff were on hand to receive Peter Cooper Medals for their respective services to art and science.

Cooper Union had plenty to celebrate. Over the years its assets, with the help of other rich men, had grown to $12,700,000, its schools of art and engineering were fully accredited on the college level, awarding bachelor’s degrees in civil, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering and certificates of graduation in fine arts, graphic arts and architecture. Three evenings a week there were public lectures in the Great Hall on subjects ranging from atomic fission to Indonesian dances. Among the Union’s eminent alumni had been Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Labor Leader Samuel Gompers, Scientist-Inventor Michael Pupin. Moreover, Cooper Union had served as inspiration for a number of privately endowed technical schools (e.g., Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology) across the country.

Most notable fact of all: Cooper Union’s 1,400 students (chosen by stiff competitive exams which eliminate five out of six applicants) still got their tuition, as the founder intended, free of charge.

* Where in 1860 Presidential Aspirant Abraham Lincoln delivered the speech (on slavery) which is credited with having cinched the Republican nomination for him.