or he was first of all an
American, keenly aware of the opportunities offered by the free
institutions of his country to individual ambition, 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 spirit," added
this review of his life:--

"Looking back, I can see that my career has been divided into three
eras. During the first thirty years I was engaged in getting a start in
life; during the second thirty years I was occupied in getting means for
carrying out the modest plan which I had long formed for the benefit of
my fellow men; and during the last thirty years I have devoted myself to
the execution of these plans. This work is now done."

Accepting this division of his career, as convenient, though not
strictly accurate (since the processes described really overlapped
instead of separately succeeding one another), we may consider first Mr.
Cooper's means and method of achieving personal success; and in this
survey the conditions of his boyhood and early youth are primarily
important.

While he was still very young, the family removed from a temporary
residence of three years in New York city to Peekskill, where he
remained until, at the age of seventeen, he returned to New York as an
apprentice, to be, thenceforward, dependent upon his own exertions for a
living.

The intervening period was spent in ways characteristic of the period
and of the individual. He attended school for three or four "quarters,"
of which period, according to his later recollection, "probably half was
oc