Cooper, Myles

Cooper, Myles, 1737?–1785, 2d president of King's College (now Columbia Univ.), b. England, educated at Oxford. He was ordained a priest in 1761 and went to King's College (1762) as professor of moral philosophy and assistant to the president. In 1763 he was made president, succeeding Samuel Johnson. Although his early administration was marked by the founding of a grammar school, a medical school, and a hospital, with changes in the curriculum and great increase in prestige, the college experienced hardships during the American Revolution. Cooper was an active and vocal Loyalist, and in 1775 he was forced to flee before the patriots' hatred to a British warship in New York harbor. He returned to Oxford and lived out his life in England.