or twenty-five years De Witt
Clinton presided. During that period the schools, supported by generous
private contributions, and also after a while by a state tax, steadily
increased in number, efficiency, and public favor. Peter Cooper had been
always a zealous supporter of these schools, but not until 1838 did he
become--by election as a trustee of the Free School Society--officially
connected with them. It was a critical period in their history. The
original national debt of the Union had been recently extinguished, and
a considerable surplus had been returned to the contributing States, of
which New York devoted its share to educational purposes, thus largely
increasing the fund for the city. In 1822, sixteen years before, the
common council had made the free schools "unsectarian," excluding from
the benefits of the fund all institutions of denominational character.
The various sects had submitted reluctantly to this decision so long as
the fund was too small to be divided among them; but its sudden
enlargement encouraged an attempt to secure appropriations for parochial
schools.

In his first annual message Governor Seward recommended to the
legislature the establishment of schools in which the children of
foreigners might be "instructed by teachers speaking the same language
with themselves and professing the same faith." The Roman Catholic
community, acting at once upon this suggestion, sent a deputation to the
New York common council demanding for their schools "a pro rata share"
of the educational fund, to which as taxpayers they contributed.

In the resistance made to this claim by the Free School Society Mr.
Cooper took a prominent and ardent part. The advocates of unsectarian
public schools were victorious; but the controversy continued to agitate
the State until the passage by the legislature in 1842 of an act
establishing in New York city a new board of education to control the
schools supported from the funds of the State, and at the same time
forbidding the support from this fund of schools in which "any religious
sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced."
The Free School Society, resenting and distrusting this new (and in some
respects complicated) arrangement, continued its separate activity for
eleven years; but in 1853, the unsectarian character of the public
schools of New York having been established beyond question, the society
and the board of education were by common