was referred to as a People's College, which was described as follows:

The plan proposed to combine labor with study and improvement in manual skill with intellectual culture-to have in time a mechanic's institute or seminary in every county and senate district, but in the first effort to establish one central or State college of practical science, wherein our youth, aspiring to efficiency and eminence in life as architects, engineers, or artisans of any sort, might receive a thorough physical and mental training, laboring a part of the day and thus paying at first a part and afterward for a whole subsistence and teaching."

Although Horace Greeley became interested in the idea of a People's College and it was incorporated by the State legislature as a private institution, the necessary funds for its support were never raised. The proposal for an agricultural college met with more favor, for in 1856 the State of New York made a loan of $40,000 for its establishment in Seneca County under private control providing an equal amount was raised by subscription. The necessary funds were subscribed and the agricultural college started several years later, its curricula including natural sciences, mathematics, drawing, bookkeeping, and construction of roads, bridges, and fences with their application to various phases of agriculture. At the outbreak of the Civil War, however, it was closed and never reopened.

The culmination of this movement to democratize higher education and provide colleges for the industrial classes was the first Morrill Act of 1862, one of the great epoch-making events in the educational history of the United States. Justin Smith Morrill, then Representative in the lower House and later United States Senator from the State of Vermont, was its author and is regarded as the father of the land-grant college. From the evidence already presented it is extremely doubtful whether the movement actually originated with him. The establishment of agricultural colleges in a number of the States, the petitions sent to Congress for publicland grants to create industrial and agricultural institutions in each State, and the public agitation and propaganda favoring the new type of technical and industrial education prior to the introduction of the Morrill measure in Congress indicate that the plan had its origin in other sources. To Mr. Morrill, however, belongs the full credit for sponsoring the act and for the promotion of its passage through Congress. This was not accomplished without difficulty, as Mr. Morrill was compelled to present his bill in two successive sessions of the national legislative body before it was finally enacted into law.

2 Plan for People's College submitted by Mechanics Mutual Protection at Lockport, N. Y., and afterwards to State organization, December, 1849.

The initial land-grant college bill was introduced into the National House of Representatives by Mr. Morrill in 1857. It immediately received the support of State university presidents, agricultural college leaders, and agricultural and mechanical societies throughout the country. A number of the universities and colleges sent representatives to Washington to canvass personally Members of Congress, furnish data, and render other assistance. Turner in Illinois devoted his time to arousing public sentiment and bringing influences to bear through correspondence and petitions. The bill was finally passed in the House by a vote of 105 to 100 in April, 1858, and in the Senate in February, 1859, the vote being 25 to 22. Although innumerable appeals were made to him by educational leaders for his approval, President Buchanan announced his veto of the bill in the same month. Former president William O. Thompson, of Ohio State University, summarized President Buchanan's reasons for vetoing the measure as follows:

First. The inopportuneness of the time in view of the depleted condition of the Treasury.

Second. The effect feared on the relations between the Federal and State Governments, it being argued that this grant of lands was the exercise of a power outside of the expressly enumerated powers delegated to Congress.

Third. The danger of injury to the new States on the ground that speculators would control large grants of land.

Fourth. A doubt whether the bill would contribute to the advancement of agriculture and mechanic arts, a doubt based on the theory that the Federal Government had no constitutional power to follow the grant into the States and to enforce the application of the funds to the intended objects; that as a matter of fact the State would lose control over the gift after having made it. Fifth. The interference which the operations of the bill would be likely to bring about with existing colleges in the different States, in many of which agriculture was taught as a science, and in all of which it ought to be so taught; the familiar argument of paralleling and paralizing existing institutions which we have heard in the present generation.

Sixth. A doubt as to the power of Congress under the Constitution to make a donation of public lands for the purpose of educating the people of the several States.

Undismayed by its defeat, Mr. Morrill made a complete answer on all the constitutional questions raised by President Buchanan and in 1861 introduced the bill again at the next session of Congress. A new administration had assumed control of the Government. The complexion of both the House and the Senate had been changed by the election. Notwithstanding this situation considerable opposition developed against the measure. The House Committee on Public Lands, to which it had been referred, reported the bill unfavorably. In the meantime Senator Wade, of Ohio, had presented a similar bill in the Senate, probably by agreement with Mr. Morrill.

The Senate bill was passed first after a number of amendments and after reaching the House, Mr. Morrill, unable to secure action on his own bill succeeded in June, 1862, in obtaining passage of the Senate measure by the House. It was signed by the President in July of the same year so that the charter of the land-grant college bears the name of Abraham Lincoln.

The first Morrill Act, which provided for the establishment of the most comprehensive system of scientific, technical, and practical higher education the world has ever known, contained three outstanding features. The first was the provision for the creation of a permanent endowment through grants of public lands for the organization and support of the colleges. The second was the designation of the type of college to be established. The third was the placing of an obligation upon the States to maintain intact the capital fund of the endowment for the maintenance of the college, which carried the far-reaching implication of future financial support by the State governments themselves.

The provisions of the act dealing with the grants of public lands and the creation of permanent endowments for the colleges were as follows:

That there be granted to the several States

an amount of public land, to be apportioned to each State a quantity equal to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860.

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That the land aforesaid shall be apportioned to the several States in sections or subdivisions of sections, not less than one-quarter of a section; and whenever there are public lands in a State subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 per acre, the quantity to which said State shall be entitled shall be selected from such lands within the limits of such State; and the Secretary of the Interior is hereby directed to issue to each of the States in which there is not a quantity of public lands subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 per acre to which said State may be entitled under the provisions land scrip to the amount in acres for the deficiency of its distributive share, said scrip to be sold by said States and the proceeds thereof applied to the uses and purposes prescribed in this act, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever.

Under this provision States having public lands were given title to such land selected within their borders. States without public lands were issued scrip that could be sold.

The second outstanding feature of the act was the description of the college to be organized-a college that was to provide a scientific, technical, and practical higher education to the industrial classes as well as military education. The provision of the law dealing with this question reads as follows:

That the proceeds of the land-grant sales were to be devoted to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college, where the leading

object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts in such a manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

The third provision, obligating the States to maintain the endowment intact and without diminution and to replace it, if lost, is regarded as the great stimulus that resulted in public support of higher education in the United States. Having established the colleges under this act through the endowment provided by Federal grants of public lands, it was incumbent upon the Sates to furnish the necessary additional funds for their future development and expansion. The part of the act covering this phase was as follows: That all monies derived from the sale of the lands * * * by the States to which lands are apportioned, and from the sale of land scrip hereinbefore provided for, shall be invested in stocks of the United States or of the States, or some other safe stocks, yielding not less than 5 per centum upon the par value of said stocks; and that the monies so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest to which shall be inviolably appropriated by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this act

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That if any portion of the fund invested as provided by the foregoing section, or any portion of the interest thereon, shall by any action or contingency be diminished or lost, it shall be replaced by the State to which it belongs, so that the capital of the fund shall remain forever undiminished; and the annual interest shall be regularly applied without diminution to the purposes heretofore mentioned, except that a sum, not exceeding 10 per centum upon the amount received by any State under the provisions of this act, may be expended for the purchase of lands for sites or experimental farms whenever authorized by the respective legislatures of said States. No portion of said fund, nor the interest thereon, shall be applied, directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings.

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The act specifically provided that the States should express their acceptance of the provisions of the law through their legislatures within two years and that at least one college should be established by each State within a period of five years. In 1864 the act was amended extending the time for its acceptance an additional two years, and in 1866 a second amendment provided for another 3-year extension. This amendment also fixed the time for the establishment of the college by the State within a period of five years after the filing of its acceptance of the land-grants. The first Morrill Act applied only to the States then in the Union. In 1864 an amendment extended its terms to West Virginia, in 1866 to Nevada, in 1867 to Nebraska, and subsequently the grants were extended to the Territories as they were admitted into the Union so that the act was made

applicable to every State. The Territory of Alaska was recently made a similar land grant for its college through a special act of Congress. Although having established agricultural and mechanical colleges, no Federal grants of public land have yet been made to the Territories of Hawaii and Porto Rico for the benefit of the institutions.

As already indicated, it was necessary for the States to accept formally the provisions of the act through their legislatures. After acceptance the responsibility rested upon them of selling the land or scrip and of organizing colleges to receive the annual income from the endowment. In Table 1 are given the dates of the acceptance of the act by the different States, the number of acres received by them in land or scrip, the original sale price received for the land and scrip by the different States, and the dates of the organization of the colleges and when they were opened to students.

TABLE 1.—Data on enforcement of terms of first Morrill Act by the States