tate
of New York, but the United States of America; and he earnestly opposed
the contention of the New York iron founders, that contracts for the
pipe of the Croton system ought not to be made with inhabitants of
another State. His arguments prevailed; and the pipe was ordered from a
Philadelphia manufacturer, who offered a better article at a lower
price.

During Mr. Cooper's official service, and not without his active aid and
advice (though his personal attention was mainly given to the water
department), the beginnings of an organized police and fire service were
established. When he was first elected to office the city was guarded by
watchmen, who served four hours every night for seventy-five cents.
Every householder was expected to have leathern buckets in his hall, and
in case of an alarm of fire to throw them into the street, so that the
citizens voluntarily running to the rescue could form a line to the
nearest pump, and, passing the water by means of the buckets, supply the
tank of the small hand-engine, which then squirted it upon the burning
building. It is needless to detail here the steps by which out of this
crude beginning the present effective New York Fire Department has been
perfected. Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was promoted,
and its future importance was foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his
public-spirited colleagues.

But a still more profoundly important element of municipal and national
progress, in which the participation of Peter Cooper was active and
influential, was the free public school system in New York. This system
was originally planted by the great mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton,
to whom the State is indebted for the Erie Canal, and for many other
plans and impulses scarcely less significant. While Clinton was an
advocate of universal suffrage, he perceived the danger of granting this
power to an ignorant and largely foreign population; and in 1805 he
secured a charter for "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the
City of New York for the Education of Such Poor Children as do not
Belong to, or are not Provided for by, Any Religious Society."

The appeal of this society to "the affluent and charitable of every
denomination of Christians" was liberally answered, and by December,
1809, a school capable of accommodating five hundred children had been
erected upon a purchased site. This was the beginning in New York city
of the free school system, over which f