ck, and iron.
This work occupied several years, and during its progress a period of
great financial distress threatened to interrupt it. But he persisted in
the undertaking, at great risk to his private business; and the building
was finished at a cost (including that of the land) of more than six
hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper,
together with the legacy provided by his will, and doubled by his heirs,
and still later donations from his family and immediate relatives, make
up a total of more than double that amount.[7]

Up to the time when the building was completed Mr. Cooper had taken
little advice as to the details of his project. Its outlines in his mind
were those which he had conceived a quarter-century before, and though
he was doubtless conscious that new social and industrial conditions had
intervened which would require some modifications of his plan, he had
not formulated such changes.

The classes which he wished especially to reach were those who, being
already engaged in earning a living by labor, could scarcely be expected
to take regular courses in instruction; and the idea of such instruction
appears to have been at the beginning subordinate in his mind. He had a
strong impression that young mechanics and apprentices, instead of
wasting their time in dissipation, should improve their minds during the
intervals of labor; and not unnaturally his first thought as to the
means of such improvement turned to those things which had aroused and
stimulated his own mind. Probably he did not realize that the mass of
men were not like himself, and that something more than mere suggestion
or opportunity would be required to develop the mental powers and
enlarge the knowledge of the average workingman. However that may be,
the original vague design of Mr. Cooper was something like this:--

There was in the city of New York a famous collection of curiosities
known as Scudder's Museum. Barnum's Museum afterwards took its place;
but that, too, has long since disappeared; and the small so-called
museums now scattered through the city but faintly remind old
inhabitants of the glories of Scudder's or Barnum's in their prime.
These establishments contained all sorts of curiosities, arranged
without much reference to scientific use,--wax-works, historical relics,
dwarfs, giants, living and stuffed animals, etc. There was also a
lecture-room, devoted principally to moral melodrama; and o