Who said, "Education of the highest quality should be “as free as air and water”?

[NYC_SKP]

Peter Cooper, founder of the Cooper Union, NY, (my alma matter)

Located in Manhattan, Cooper Union offers degree programs in art, architecture and engineering, and every admitted student receives four years of free tuition valued at $130,000. According to a recent article in the New York Times, applications for early decision to the school were up 70 percent this year. The admissions rate at Cooper Union is about 8 percent, while the enrollment is a little more than 900. The Cooper Union endowment is valued at nearly $600 million.

History: Peter Cooper, who invented the first locomotive in the United States, believed that education of the highest quality should be “as free as air and water,” so he founded Cooper Union in 1858. Cooper’s greatest legacy may have come 14 years earlier, when he received the first American patent for powdered gelatin. A cough syrup manufacturer bought the patent from Cooper, developed a prepackaged gelatin dessert, and named it Jell-O in 1897.

Notable: The Great Hall on the Cooper Union campus has been the site of several historic speeches. Abraham Lincoln outlined his views on slavery – namely that he didn’t want to see it spread – in a famous address there, while Mark Twain spoke at the school’s inauguration.



(note: the architecture program is five years)

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22573.html