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These Fifty Years
I
THE FEDERAL LAND GRANT
HE
modern-day agricultural college with its four-year collegiate
course, its high schools and short courses, its well-developed
scientific research, and its extension activities, has been a
development of hardly more than the last quarter century.
Certainly fifty years will cover the outstanding accomplishments.
After the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 it was
many years before the agricultural or industrial colleges (as they
were often called) began to lay the foundations of agricultural
education and research as they are known today.
Because the prosperity of the New World
hinged to a large extent on the development of its agricultural
resources, well-intentioned but often feeble attempts at
agricultural instruction were frequently made. Perhaps the first
record of any agricultural instruction in America is that of the
Franciscan monks who in 1629 endeavored to supplement "primitive
practices with the more scientific and fruitful methods of
agriculture brought from the Old World" among the Pueblo Indians
of the Southwest.
In 1751 William Smith issued a prospectus
designed as a model for colleges in which he provided for a course
to be known as the chemistry of agriculture. His plan was carried
out in the Philadelphia Academy, now the University of
Pennsylvania. Animal husbandry was mentioned in the original
prospectus of King's College (Columbia University) in 1754, and a
professorship of botany and agriculture was established there in
1792. "An attempt is made by the professor, who is a practical
farmer,
to elucidate and explain the economy of plants, and
affinity to animals, and the organization, stimuli, life diseases
and death of both classes of beings," reads a report of this
course.
President Washington was a member of the
first society for promoting agriculture, which was organized at
Philadelphia, March 1, 1785. In 1801 the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society started a subscription which resulted in the
establishment of a professorship of natural history at Harvard
University in 1804. The will of Benjamin Bussey of Roxbury, Mass.,
proved in 1842, bequeathed half of the income of about $300,000
and 200 acres of land in Roxbury to the president and fellows of
Harvard University on condition that they establish on the farm "a
course of instruction in practical agriculture, in useful and
ornamental gardening, in botany, and in such other branches of
natural science as may tend to promote a knowledge of practical
agriculture and the various arts subservient thereto." But, due to
other provisions in the will, nothing was done until 1870.
In 1839 the distribution of seeds and plants
thru a Congressional appropriation began, which was to result,
later on in 1862, in the establishment of the United States
Department of Agriculture. In 1849 the New York Agricultural
Society established at Albany a chemical laboratory for the
analysis of soils, manures, etc. Michigan in 1857 and Pennsylvania
and Maryland in 1859 established agricultural colleges which grew
to be permanent institutions. The Michigan school was the first
exclusively agricultural college in the United States.
These were for the most part rather modest
attempts, but they were indications that people were beginning to
appreciate the necessity for more information about agriculture.
On the other hand, there had been a rather insistent demand for
education coming from the great mass of people. Education for the
masses as well as the classes was echoed by many state
legislatures and individuals.
While educational institutions had
drawn on the farms and industries for students, they had passed
their graduates on to other fields of activity.
The answer to the cry for higher education of
a popular nature was found in the Land-Grant College idea.
Probably no single idea has ever so moulded the history of higher
education in the United States.
PROFESSOR TURNER AND THE ILLINOIS PLAN
The question of money constantly stood in the
way of those who would provide agricultural and industrial
education for the great mass of the people, and consequently the
state legislatures were not at all backward about asking the
Federal Government to help out by means of grants of land. The
Legislature of Michigan petitioned Congress in 1850 for a donation
of 350,000 acres of public lands for the establishment of an
agricultural college. The Senate of New York in 1852 asked
Congress "to make grants of land to all the states for the purpose
of education and for other useful purposes." Other states asked
for the establishment of a national institution which would do for
agriculture what West Point was doing for the Army.
In Illinois Prof. J. B. Turner was promoting
the idea of an institution which would do for the farmer and the
mechanic what private colleges were doing for the lawyer, doctor,
and clergyman. His plan called for the establishment of a
university in each state in the Union, and was widely discussed.
The Legislature of Illinois in 1853 was the first legislature to
petition Congress to make a grant of federal lands to each state
in the Union for the purpose of developing in each state one
institution "for the more liberal and practical education of our
industrial classes and their teachers." The Illinois plan was the
one which was finally embodied in the Land Grant of 1862 and its
auxiliary acts.
The agitation for popular colleges was
bearing fruit and was reflected in an editorial, appearing in the
New York Tribune February 26, 1853:
"It may now be ten years since a few poor and
inconsiderate persons began to agitate in favor of a more
practical system of thorough education, whereby youth without
distinction of sex should be trained for eminent usefulness in all
the departments of industry. They demanded seminaries in which
agriculture, the mechanic arts, the management of machinery, etc.,
should be thoroughly taught, based on a knowledge of chemistry,
geology, botany, hydraulics, etc., with a corresponding
proficiency in all that pertains to housewifery, and household
manufactures for female pupils."1
In speaking of the Illinois plan, the
editorial went on:
"Here is the principle contended for by the
friends of practical education abundantly affirmed, with a plan
for its immediate realization. And it is worthy of note that one
of the most extensive of the public land (or new) states proposes
a magnificent donation of public land to each of the states, old
as well as new, in furtherance of this idea. Whether that precise
form of aid to the project is most judicious and likely to be
effective, we will not here consider. Suffice it that the
Legislature of Illinois has taken a noble step forward, in a most
liberal and patriotic spirit, for which its members will be
heartily thanked by thousands throughout the Union. We feel that
this step has materially hastened the coming of Scientific and
Practical Education for all who desire and are willing to work for
it. It cannot come too soon."
PASSAGE OF THE LAND-GRANT ACT
Justin S. Morrill, representative and later
senator from Vermont, was active in Congress in promoting the
matter. On December 14, 1857 he introduced into the lower house of
Congress the first bill for a federal grant of land to each state.
Congress passed the bill in 1859, but it was vetoed by President
Buchanan. Senator Wade of Ohio again introduced a bill. The
legislation was finally passed and signed by President Lincoln
July 2, 1862, four and a half years after Mr. Morrill had
introduced his original bill.
1 In quotations the original
spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have been generally
followed.
Each state had now received a grant of
30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative in
Congress. The money derived from the sale of these lands was to be
invested in securities bearing not less than 5 per cent interest
and the income was to be used for the support of at least one
college where the leading object should be to teach agriculture
and mechanic arts.
This legislation is known as the Morrill Act,
because of the activity of Senator Morrill in promoting it. In
commenting upon his desire for such legislation Mr. Morrill stated
that such institutions had already been established in other
countries and were supported by their governments, but they were
confined to agriculture, a curriculum which Mr. Morrill considered
too limited. "This for our people with all their industrial
aptitudes and ingenious inventions appeared to me unnecessarily
limited," Mr. Morrill stated. His further reasons are given
below:
"First, that the public lands of most value
were being rapidly dissipated by donations to merely local and
private objects, where one state alone might be benefited at the
expense of the property of the Union.
"Second, that the very cheapness of our
public lands, and the facility of purchase and transfer, tended to
a system of bad farming, strip and waste of soil, by encouraging
short occupancy and speedy search for new homes, entailing upon
the first and older settlements a rapid deterioration of the soil,
which would not be likely to be arrested, except by a more
thorough and scientific knowledge of agriculture, and by a higher
education of those who were devoted to its pursuit.
"Third, being myself the son of a
hard-handed blacksmith, the most truly honest man I ever knew, who
felt his own deprivation of schools, I could not overlook
mechanics in any measure intended to aid the industrial classes in
the procurement of an education that might exalt their
usefulness.
"Fourth, that most of the existing collegiate
institutions and their feeders were based upon the classic plan of
teaching those only destined to pursue the so-called learned
professions, leaving farmers and mechanics and all those who must
win their bread by labor to the haphazard of being self-taught or
not scientifically taught at
all, and restricting the number of those who might be
supposed to be qualified to fill places of high consideration in
private or public employments to the limited number of the
graduates of literary institutions. The thoroughly educated, being
most sure to educate their sons, appeared to be perpetuating a
monopoly of education inconsistent with the welfare and complete
prosperity of American institutions.
"Fifth, that it was apparent, while some
localities were possessed of abundant instrumentalities for
education, both common and higher, many of the states were
deficient and likely so to remain unless aided by the common fund
of the proceeds of the public lands, which were held for this
purpose more than any other."
GRANTS IN THE SEVERAL STATES
At last each state had received a perpetual
endowment for at least one college, which was to offer courses of
a practical character. With the exception of 10 per cent which
might be expended for the site of a college, all the money derived
from the sale of the lands or land scrip granted to the various
states was to be invested as a permanent endowment fund. In some
cases entirely new colleges were established. In other states
there was a wild scramble among the existing colleges for the land
grant money.
In Michigan the land grant went to the
Michigan Agricultural College, which had been established a few
years before. In Massachusetts the money was given partly to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and partly to an institution
created for the purpose of affording agricultural instruction, at
Amherst. In some states the money was given to state universities
already established, as in Wisconsin and Minnesota, while in other
states institutions which were to become great state universities
were established thru the act. The latter was the case in
Nebraska.
In most of the eastern states there was not,
of course, sufficient public domain available for entry to provide
30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative in
Congress. The states that had public lands within their
borders could take up and locate the land. The states
that did not have this public land were issued scrip, representing
land acreage. The state receiving this scrip could not locate land
in another state, but it could sell this scrip to individuals, and
the purchaser might take up government lands in any state.
Had every state handled this matter as well
as it might, the foundation for almost self-sustaining educational
institutions might have been laid everywhere. In many cases land
and scrip were bartered away for next to nothing. Within fifty
years these lands were selling at from $50 to $100 an acre. In
fact, the apparent lack of foresight with which the matter was
handled was responsible for the demand for more federal money,
which led to the Second Morrill Act of 1890.
The market was flooded with this land scrip.
Many of the states disposed of their scrip at less than $1 an
acre. Indiana received $212,238.50 for its 390,000 acres.
Louisiana sold its 209,920 acres at 87 cents an acre. Maine sold
its scrip, representing 210,000 acres, for $116,359.20. Tennessee
sold its scrip for a little more than 90 cents an acre. So it
went, almost without exception, throughout the entire list of
states receiving scrip.
But there was one big exception and that
exception was Cornell University. Ezra Cornell, a benefactor of
Cornell College for whom Cornell University was later named, saw
New York's land scrip, representing 989,920 acres, being sold out
at a little more than 50 cents an acre. Of course no state could
of itself locate lands in another state, but there was nothing to
prevent an individual from doing so. Mr. Cornell made a contract
with the state to buy this scrip and locate the land. He located
500,000 acres of the finest timberlands in Wisconsin. Up to July
1, 1921, the total endowment from the sale of lands amounted to
$5,737,698.04, with 280 acres of land still remaining unsold.
The states that were able to locate the lands
within their own domain did much better as a rule than the
states
receiving the scrip. That was because they could hold the
lands until they would bring a better price. Those that held their
land the longest naturally were able to secure the largest
endowment. The states entering the Union later, and for which
provision for similar grants of land was made, tended to keep
their lands, rather than the money derived from them, as in the
cases of Idaho and Arizona.
Kansas derived $491,746 from the sale of
82,315 acres of land. A deficit of 7,686 acres was made up by
Congress in 1907 and this remains unsold. Iowa received
$592,463.46 and none of its land remains unsold. It must be
remembered that the representation of the western states in
Congress was by no means equal to that of the eastern states, and
consequently their respective land grants were smaller. But so
much better did they handle things that the total amount of
endowment received by many western states exceeded that of
apparently more fortunate eastern states. The consideration of
Nebraska's record in handling its educational land grant will be
left until later.
REFERENCES
Agricultural Education. International Encyclopedia,
1918.
Agricultural Education. Monroe's Cyclopedia of
Education, 1911.
ANDREWS, BENJAMIN
F. The Land Grant of 1862 and the Land-Grant Colleges.
Bulletin No. 13, 1918, of the United States Bureau of
Education.
JAMES, EDMUND
J. The Origin of the Land-Grant Act of 1862. University
Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.
1910.
TRUE, A. C. and
CLARK, V. A. Agricultural Experiment
Stations in the United States. United States Department of
Agriculture, 1900.
© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole
Miller
