he found himself hindered by lack of
thorough knowledge. He invented perpetually and profusely; but some of
his most cherished inventions did not find practical recognition,
because he had attempted the premature or the impossible. His guiding
principle, of trying to do something that had never been done before, is
not an adequate substitute for a scientific knowledge of what can be,
and now needs to be, done. He found himself often too far in advance of
his generation. Moreover, he found that the lack of education crippled
him in the attempt to make other men understand and appreciate his
fruitful ideas. This is true of all really great "self-made men." They
may have achieved success and fame in spite of early disadvantages; they
may, perhaps, recognize the fact that such disadvantages, necessitating
a stern struggle, have sifted out, by natural selection, the possessors
of genius and sterling character; but not one of them fails to lament
the lack of that early training which would have made him still more
successful than he is; and not one of them fails to desire, for his
children and the coming generation of his fellows, the early advantages
which were denied to himself.

6. This experience it was which gave form to the aspirations and
purposes of Peter Cooper. As an apprentice, he resolved to do something
for the benefit of apprentices--to found some institution which should
supplement the deficiencies of early education, furnishing to virtuous,
industrious, and ambitious youths the means of progress, and attracting
the thoughtless or indolent into the same ascending road. How this
conception came to be both modified and realized will be seen in later
pages. At this point it is sufficient to note that the plan was
originally not only philanthropic, but patriotic and practical. It
contemplated the benefit, through means adapted to their special
condition, of Americans of that class to which Peter Cooper himself
belonged.

Some further observations concerning the secret of the universal esteem
and affection enjoyed by Mr. Cooper will be reserved for the closing
chapter.

PETER COOPER

I

ANCESTRY

OBADIAH COOPER, who, with his two brothers, came from England to the
colony of New York about 1662, belonged, as we may infer with
confidence, to that sturdy class of republican yeomanry which found the
restored reign of the Stuarts intolerable. He settled at
Fishkill-on-the-Hudson; and his son Obad