Every year nearly five hundred thousand read in the free library and reading rooms.

Four thousand pupils came to the night school to study science and art.

The white-haired, kindly-faced man went daily to see the students.

They loved him as a father.

His last act was to buy ten type-writers for the girls in that department.

Has the work paid?

Ask any of those young men and women who have gone out from Cooper Inst.i.tute to earn their own living.

Not one of them had to pay a cent for his education.

No one is admitted who does not expect to earn his living.

Mr. Cooper did not love weak, idle young people, who are willing their parents shall take care of them.

The work has grown so large that more money is needed--perhaps another million.

Mr. Cooper gave it two millions of dollars.

Many are turned from the doors because there is no more room.

Some of the pupils from the Inst.i.tute have become teachers.

One receives two dollars an hour for teaching.

Several engrave on wood.

One receives one hundred and fifty dollars a month.

Another, a lady, married a gentleman of wealth, and to show her grat.i.tude to Mr. Cooper has opened another "Free School of Art."

Is it any wonder that when Peter Cooper died thirty-five hundred came up from the Inst.i.tution to lay roses upon his coffin.

His last words to his son and daughter were not to forget Cooper Union.

They have just given one hundred thousand dollars to it.

Mr. Cooper had many friends among the great and good of the land.

He died as unselfishly as he had lived, and who can measure the good he did in the world?

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDISON.]

A GREAT INVENTOR.

Thomas A. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847.

There was nothing in Milan to make a boy wish to do great deeds.

There was a ca.n.a.l there.

Thomas had one great help--his mother.

She had been a teacher.

Her greatest wish for her son was that he should love knowledge.

Thomas had a quick mind.

He inquired into everything.

He was fond of getting every little thing well learned.

He never did things by halves.

He loved to try experiments.

When Thomas was a very little boy, only six years old, and still wearing dresses, he did a very funny thing.

He was one day found missing.

His frightened parents searched for him long and anxiously.

Where do you think he was found?

They found him in the barn, sitting on a nest of goose eggs, with his dress spread out to keep them warm.

He thought he could hatch some goslings as well as the mother-goose.

He had placed some food near by so that he might stay as long as necessary.

He went to a regular school only two months.

His father and mother were his teachers.

His father, to encourage him to read, paid him for every book which he read.