ach other.

This sketch of Mr. Cooper's career furnishes the elements of an
analysis, which I introduce here, as a guide in the interpretation of
what is to follow.

1. The time of his birth and the prophetic anticipations of his parents
profoundly influenced his ambition to do something great for his
fellow-citizens of the republic whose life began so nearly with his own.

2. The atmosphere surrounding his youth was one of unlimited and
audacious adventure. New institutions, a virgin continent, the ardent
desire to be independent of the Old World, and a profound belief in the
destiny of America, all combined to stimulate endeavor. What Peter
Cooper said of himself as an apprentice was true of the typical young
American of his time: "I was always planning and contriving, and was
never satisfied unless I was doing something difficult--something that
had never been done before, if possible."

3. The new freedom and the vast opportunity presented in the young
republic encouraged, to a degree not paralleled before or since, that
change of occupation which, with all its drawbacks, had the one great
merit that it educated men to various activities. It was no disgrace to
an American to go into one business after another, seeking the one which
would prove most profitable and agreeable. Thus, Peter Cooper worked
successively as a hatter, a coach-builder, a machinist, a machine-maker,
a grocer, an iron-worker, and a glue-manufacturer, achieving success in
every occupation, but abandoning each for something more promising, and
learning in each something which promoted his success in the next.

4. At every stage of his progress, he followed the ideal of personal
independence, the honest acquisition of property, the establishment of a
home, and the rearing of a family. These were the first duties and the
dearest wishes--no matter what greater things might lie beyond. And he
profoundly realized that temperance, industry, frugality, and patience
were the necessary preliminaries to any longed-for achievement. As he
says, he had first to spend thirty years in getting a start; then to
spend another thirty years in accumulating the means for further advance
into the wider sphere of his aspirations. And during each stage of this
process, he was patient, as well as hopeful, neither wasting his
energies in visionary schemes nor allowing the eddies of daily toil to
divert the current of his deeper purposes.

5. At every stage, however,