During Mr. Cooper's official service, and not without his active aid and advice (though his personal attention was mainly given to the water department), the beginnings of an organized police and fire service were established. When he was first elected to office the city was guarded by watchmen, who served four hours every night for seventy-five cents. Every householder was expected to have leathern buckets in his hall, and in case of an alarm of fire to throw them into the street, so that the citizens voluntarily running to the rescue could form a line to the nearest pump, and, passing the water by means of the buckets, supply the tank of the small hand-engine, which then squirted it upon the burning building. It is needless to detail here the steps by which out of this crude beginning the present effective New York Fire Department has been perfected. Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was promoted, and its future importance was foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his public-spirited colleagues. But a still more profoundly important element of municipal and national progress, in which the participation of Peter Cooper was active and influential, was the free public school system in New York. This system was originally planted by the great mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton, to whom the State is indebted for the Erie Canal, and for many other plans and impulses scarcely less significant. While Clinton was an advocate of universal suffrage, he perceived the danger of granting this power to an ignorant and largely foreign population; and in 1805 he secured a charter for "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York for the Education of Such Poor Children as do not Belong to, or are not Provided for by, Any Religious Society."