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 lecture-halls and laboratories; and the roof was abandoned to the weather. To all these changes, and to many other novelties adopted afterwards, Mr. Cooper was reconciled by one conclusive argument; namely, the proof afforded by their results that the Cooper Union was giving to the working classes that which they needed most and most desired. Now and then perhaps a sigh might escape him for the dream of his youth. I remember one occasion when I accompanied him to the roof of the building, where some new construction was going on which he wished to inspect. The old man stood for some time admiring the view in all directions, and at last, recalling how he had once imagined happy crowds enjoying the delights of that "roof-garden," and casting a mournful glance at the central spot where the band was to have been, he said, "Sometimes I think my first plan was the best!"[9] But such regrets did not occupy his mind. He was satisfied to know that the institution he had founded, building better than he knew, had proved its fitness by its success in the eager and grateful use made of it by those for whose benefit it was intended and in the actual evidences of such benefit. Every year managers of the different departments took pains to report to him instances in which students already earning wages had increased their earnings through the added knowledge or skill acquired in the evening classes; and this was the feature of the annual statements upon which he dwelt with the greatest satisfaction. The charter of the Cooper Union was finally adopted in its present form by the legislature of the State of New York, April 13, 1859; and the deed of trust, executed in compliance therewith, on the 29th day of the same month, by Peter Cooper and his wife, Sarah, conveyed to the board of trustees the title to "all that piece and parcel of land bounded on the west by Fourth Avenue, on the north by Astor Place, on the east by Third Avenue, and on the south by Seventh Street, . . . to be forever devoted to the advancement of science and art, in their application to the varied and useful purposes of life."