Foremost among those who have brought the Institute to its present influential position in the city have been Gen. John B. Woodward and Prof. Franklin W. Hooper. Professor Hooper, who had been elected curator of the Institute in 1889, became director of the new Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1891.
Mention has already been made of the establishment of Packer Institute and the Polytechnic Institute. The handsome gift of Mrs. Wm. S. Packer resulted in the opening of an academy for the education of young women. Since the time of the opening in 1854, under the presidency of Dr. Alonzo Crittenden, the Packer Collegiate Institute has enjoyed a peculiar prominence in the educational work of the city, and has won a high, if not a foremost, place among academies of the kind in the United States. Dr. Crittenden was succeeded in 1883 by Dr. Truman G. Backus, who had filled the professorship of English language and literature at Vassar, and whose brilliant attainments as a scholar and director have given new distinction to the institute.
A commanding position likewise has been gained by the Polytechnic Institute, whose establishment as an academy for young men resulted from the successful movement, aided by the gift of Mrs. Packer, for the establishment of a young women's school. A building on Livingston Street was completed and opened in 1855, Dr. John H. Raymond then being president of the faculty. Dr. Raymond was succeeded by Dr. David Henry Cochran, who had for ten years been principal of the State Normal School at Albany. Under a new charter, secured in 1890, the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute received "all the rights, powers, and dignities given by the law and the ordinances of the regents[46] to a college, including membership in the University of the State of New York." Dr. Henry Sanger Snow, an alumnus and a trustee of the institute, took a leading part in the negotiations which resulted in the significant change. The new building adjoining the old was first occupied in September, 1891.
The Adelphi Academy began its life in 1869 as a private school for both sexes. In 1886 Charles Pratt, then president of the board of trustees, made gifts to the Institute, by means of which it secured a new building that was opened in 1888. The since extended buildings now occupy a large part of the block bounded by Lafayette Avenue, St. James Place, Clifton Place, and Grand Avenue. The preparatory, academic, and collegiate departments are supplemented by a kindergarten and a physical-training school. Art education has always occupied an important place in the Adelphi Academy. Many well-known artists have graduated from the art school superintended by Prof. J. B. Whittaker. The principals of the Adelphi since its establishment have been John Lockwood, Homer B. Sprague, Stephen G. Taylor, Albert C. Perkins, John S. Crombie, and Charles H. Levermore.