consent amalgamated by
statute. At the final meeting of the society Peter Cooper delivered the
valedictory address, the language of which indicates that not without
apprehension did he contemplate the surrender of the public schools to
the exclusive control of a body of officials likely to be more or less
influenced by partisan or political considerations.

Yet his characteristic common sense came again in this instance to the
front. The moral which he drew from his doubts and fears was that "the
stewardship we are about to resign is not a reprieve from the
responsibilities of the future." And in obedience to this conviction he
accepted, with fourteen of his old colleagues, membership in the board
of education, of which he served for two years as vice-president,
resigning in January, 1855, at which time he had formed and begun to
carry out the great plan of an institution for free popular education
with which his name is now forever associated.

Many years later Mr. Cooper became the president of the Citizens'
Association of New York, which he supported with untiring enthusiasm and
lavish expenditure, and which in its day did good work in securing for
the city an efficient fire department, boards of health, docks, and
education, and an improved charter. Mr. Cooper retired in 1873, and the
association died soon after, to be revived in other organizations, which
have from time to time continued the perennial battle for good
government in New York begun by him.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] A curious survival of this state of things is the Manhattan Company,
which secured from the legislature a perpetual charter, so skillfully
framed (by Aaron Burr) that, although it grants much more extensive
powers than could now be obtained by a corporation, it cannot be
successfully assailed so long as the fundamental condition is
fulfilled,--namely, that the company shall be prepared to furnish water
at all times, on demand. It is said that, in compliance with this
requirement, a small steam pump is kept continually running, in
connection with a short system of pipes, somewhere near the City Hall,
and that the company stands ready to furnish water to any
applicant--only, the charter does not fix the price which it may exact!
So far as I know, the only use now made of the extensive powers granted
by this famous charter is the maintenance of the Manhattan Bank. A few
years ago, excavations in lower Broadway brought to light bored logs,
which we