Morrill Land Grant Act (1862).This law, which provided land grants to the states for the founding of colleges to teach “agriculture and the mechanic arts,” was first introduced in Congress in 1857 by Representative Justin Morrill, a Vermont Whig (later Republican). Morrill was convinced that existing colleges were failing to provide practical education for the nation's farmers and workers, whose productivity might be greatly improved through the diffusion of “useful knowledge.” Although Morrill's first bill encountered strong southern opposition and was ultimately vetoed by President James
Buchanan, a similar bill was passed in 1862 after southern secession and was signed into law by President Abraham
Lincoln.
The Morrill Act entitled each state to a grant of thirty thousand acres of federal land for each member of Congress. Funds from the sale of these lands were to be used as a permanent endowment for “at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” The states themselves had authority to choose their parcels of federal land, arrange for their sales, and designate the recipients of the income. States either chose existing universities (as in Wisconsin), founded new flagship universities (California), or named special agricultural and mechanical colleges (Indiana). Some southern states (which received grants after the
Civil War) split the funds among separate agricultural and mechanical (A&M) colleges for whites and blacks.
Most land‐grant colleges struggled at first, lacking both students and a body of useful scientific knowledge to teach. Rising demand for
engineering education and a surge in high‐school graduates, however, eventually caused these institutions to prosper. They were assisted materially by two subsequent acts passed in part because of lobbying efforts by the colleges themselves. The Hatch Act (1887) provided federal funds for
agricultural experiment stations, which considerably furthered agricultural science, and the Second Morrill Act (1890) legislated annual federal appropriations.
The Morrill Act shaped American higher education in important respects. It promoted the equal standing of practical and liberal studies; encouraged publicly supported higher education by inducing states to found universities and materially assist their development; and fostered a system of agricultural education, research, and dissemination that ultimately brought useful knowledge to the farmers Justin Morrill had originally sought to help.
See also
Agricultural Education and Extension;
Agriculture: 1770s to 1890;
Agriculture: The “Golden Age” (1890s–1920);
Education: Collegiate Education;
Education: The Rise of the University;
Land Policy, Federal.
Bibliography
Edward D. Eddy Jr. , Colleges for Our Land and Time: The Land‐Grant Idea in American Education, 1957.
Roger L. Williams , The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land‐Grant College Movement, 1991.
The Land–Grant Act and American Higher Education, History of Higher Education Annual, 1998.
Roger L. Geiger
