Union came to need for full efficiency both more money
than this source would supply and more room than was left to it after
subtracting the rooms thus rented. These needs have now been met in some
measure by further endowments, so that before long the whole building
will be devoted to educational uses. But the wisdom, at that time, of
Mr. Cooper's plan has been vindicated by the great work done with the
modest means thus provided.

The building of the Cooper Union represented his original ideas. Above
the shops and offices to be rented was an immense room intended for the
museum. A large part of the building was cut up into small meeting-rooms
for the conferences of the trades; in an upper story another great room
was provided for the cosmorama; and the flat roof was to be safely
inclosed with a balustrade, so that on pleasant days or evenings the
frequenters of the institution might sit or promenade there, partake of
harmless refreshments, listen to agreeable music,[8] and enjoy the
magnificent prospect of the city below,--the heights beyond the East
River on one side, the Hudson on the other, and the magnificent
island-studded harbor.

A noteworthy feature of this scheme was the complete obliteration of all
distinctions of class, creed, race, or sex among its beneficiaries. It
is a significant fact that through nearly half a century, while these
distinctions have been the subjects of vehement and sometimes bitter
social and political discussion, the Cooper Union has gone quietly on
educating its thousands of pupils without the least embarrassment in its
discipline, and apparently without even the consciousness on the part of
its founder or its trustees that in this perfect solution of what was
supposed to be a difficult problem they had accomplished anything
extraordinary.

When Mr. Cooper, consulting with wise and practical advisers, addressed
himself at last to the final arrangement of details, he surrendered one
after another many parts of his youthful design. The name, "The Cooper
Union for the Advancement of Science and Art," epitomized this change.
His primary purpose was unchanged; but he perceived that systematic
education would be of more value to the class he sought to aid than mere
amusement or miscellaneous talk. The great free reading-room of the
Cooper Union was substituted for the museum; the conversation parlors
for the various trades became class-rooms for instruction; the cosmorama
yielded to le