r many years,
during which the free Saturday night popular lectures in its great hall
were the only ones of their kind. They covered many sciences and arts,
chronicles of travel and themes of history and literature. The most
eminent authors, teachers, investigators, travelers, and orators of the
generation were comprised in the list of lecturers; and many of them
performed this service without other reward than the consciousness of
contributing to a noble charity, and the evident gratitude of the vast
and eagerly attentive audience.

Mr. Cooper loved to attend these Saturday evening lectures, and an
arm-chair was always ready for him on the platform. Many a speaker on
that platform has been surprised by an untimely outburst of applause and
has turned to discover the cause in the entrance of the beloved founder.
Often the subject of the evening was beyond his experience or knowledge,
but that made no difference in his respectful attention, or in the
benign satisfaction with which he contemplated the attentive audience,
and realized that they were receiving benefit. I have often felt that
the scene exhibited almost every Saturday night for many years during
the latest period of his life could be equaled only by the spectacle
presented at Ephesus, where the aged St. John the Divine fronted the
congregation of loving believers, always with his one last message,
"Little children, love one another."

But sometimes the old man would be intensely interested and aroused by
the lecture. I remember such an occasion, when I was myself the
lecturer, and had been laying down, with due scientific decorum and
diagrams, the "law of storms." At the close of the lecture, Mr. Cooper
arose, advanced to the front, and gave a vivid and animated description
of a whirlwind which he had witnessed some seventy years before, which
was received with rapt attention and tremendous applause. The lecture
was undoubtedly eclipsed in interest by this unexpected after-piece; but
the lecturer was amply compensated by his triumph in having thus
stirred the spirit and aroused the recollections of the dear old
founder.

With regard to the various schools and classes of the Cooper Union, it
must suffice to say briefly that under the elastic and comprehensive
plan of the deed of trust, two objects were constantly kept in view by
the trustees. In the first place, a complete four years' course was
always maintained, for the benefit of those who could afford th