First, he was in some respects the father of American philanthropies.  There have been far larger sums donated to the public since this man founded Cooper Institute, but I think that hundreds of the charities were born of his example.  Sometimes a father will have a large family of children who grow up to be larger than himself.  When that six-storied temple of instruction was built on Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street by Mr. Cooper, at an expense of $630,000, and endowed by him with $150,000, you must remember $100,000 was worth as much as $500,000 now, and that millionaires, who are so common now that you hardly stop to look at them, were a rare spectacle.  Stephen Girard and John Jacob Astor, of the olden time, would in our day almost excite the sympathy of some of our railroad magnates.  The nearly $800,000, which built and endowed Cooper Institute, was as much as $3,000,000 or $5,000,000 now.  But there are institutions in our day that have cost many times more dollars in building and endowment which have not accomplished more than a fraction of the good done by this munificence of 1857.  This gift brooded charities all over the land.  This mothered educational institutions.  This gave glorious suggestion to many whose large fortune was hitherto under the iron grasp of selfishness.  If the ancestral line of many an asylum or infirmary or college or university were traced back far enough, you would learn that Peter Cooper was the illustrious progenitor.  Who can estimate the effect of such an institution, standing for twenty-six years, saying to all the millions of people passing up and down the great thoroughfares:  “I am here to bless and educate, without money and without price, all the struggling ones who come under my wings?” That institution has for twenty-six years been crying shame on miserliness and cupidity.  That free reading-room has been the inspiration of five hundred free reading-rooms.  Great reservoir of American beneficence!

Again, Peter Cooper showed what a wise thing it is for a man to be his own executor.  How much better is ante-mortem charity than post-mortem beneficence.  Many people keep all their property for themselves till death, and then make good institutions their legatees.  They give up the money only because they have to.  They would take it all with them if they only had three or four stout pockets in their shroud.  Better late than never, but the reward shall not be as great as the reward of those who make charitable contribution while yet they have power to keep their money.  Charity, in last will and testament, seems sometimes to be only an attempt to bribe Charon, the ferryman, to land the boat in celestial rather than infernal regions.  Mean as sin when they disembark from the banks of this world, they hope to be greeted as benefactors when they come up the beach on the other side.  Skinflints when they die, they hope to have the reception of a George Peabody.  Besides that, how often donations by will and testament fail