CHAPTER II

FEDERAL AID FOR RESIDENT INSTRUCTION

During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a widespread interest in agricultural education in the United States, and prior to action by the Federal Government several States had established colleges of agriculture. Federal action came in 1862 in the Morrill Act.

Legislation

First Morrill Act.-Justin S. Morrill, then a Representative, and later a Senator, from Vermont, first introduced a bill in Congress in 1857 for the establishment of an agricultural and mechanical college in each State. The bill finally passed both Houses, but was vetoed by President Buchanan on February 26, 1859.2 Late in 1861, Morrill reintroduced the bill. It was again passed by both Houses, and became law with President Lincoln's signature in 1862.3 Although the Morrill Act became the foundation of a national system of education in agriculture and mechanic arts, it was in part the outgrowth of steps that had been taken prior to its enactment by several States to establish colleges for instruction in agriculture. It seems clear that, although the Act and the supplementary legislation stimulated the development of these institutions, they would probably have developed in time through State efforts.

There has been much discussion since the passage of the First Morrill Act as to its true intent. In the Act the purpose is stated in the following words:

...

. . . 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

1 Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Education in the United States: 1785-1925, U. S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication No. 36 (Washington: U. 8. Government Printing Office, 1929), pp. 95-104.

such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such 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 in life.*

In 1867 Mr. Morrill was invited to discuss his views regarding the purpose of the legislation with several faculty members of the Sheffield Scientific School, which was at that time the land-grant college for Connecticut. Professor Brewer of the group reported that Mr. Morrill said he

wished the bill to be broad enough so that the several States might use it to the best advantage. For this a wide latitude of use was necessary. The general wants and local conditions were very different in the different States and for the best use of this fund there must be much variety allowed in the details, although all the colleges should be the same in spirit and essentially of the same grade, that is colleges, in which science and not classics should be the leading idea.

He expected the schools to be schools of science rather than classical colleges; that the schools be, in fact, colleges and not institutions of lower grade...

But in all he wished as a prominent feature the "useful sciences" be taught and that where the natural influences of the studies might have less tendency to draw the students into purely literary and professional pursuits and away from business pursuits.5

Speaking at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1887 Mr. Morrill set forth his views on the general purposes of the Morrill Act in the following words:

The Land-Grant Colleges were founded on the idea that a higher and broader education should be placed in every state within the reach of those whose destiny assigns them to, or who may have the courage to choose industrial vocations where the wealth of nations is produced; where advanced civilization unfolds its comforts, and where a much larger number of the people need wider educational advantages, and impatiently await their possession. The design was to open the door to a liberal education for this large class at a cheaper cost from being close at hand, and to tempt them by offering not only sound literary instruction, but something more applicable to the productive employments of life. It would be a mistake to suppose it was intended that every student should become either a farmer or a mechanic when the design comprehended not only instruction for those who may hold the plow or follow a trade, but such instruction as any person might need—with "the world all before them where to choose”—and

4 Sec. 4.

Quoted from original manuscript by True, op. cit., pp. 107-8.

without the exclusion of those who might prefer to adhere to the classics. Milton in his famous discourse on education, gives a definition of what an education ought to be, which would seem to very completely cover all that was proposed by the Land-Grant Colleges; and Milton lacked nothing of ancient learning, nor did he suffer his culture to hide his stalwart republicanism."

Speaking before the Vermont Legislature a year later Mr. Morrill expressed himself as follows:

Only the interest from the land grant fund can be expended, and that must be expended, first-without excluding other scientific and classical studies-for teaching such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts-the latter as absolutely as the former. Obviously not manual, but intellectual instruction was the paramount object. It was not provided that agricultural labor in the field should be practically taught, any more than that the mechanical trade of a carpenter or blacksmith should be taught. Secondly, it was a liberal education that was proposed. Classical studies were not to be excluded, and, therefore, must be included. The Act of 1862 proposed a system of broad education by colleges, not limited to a superficial and dwarfed training, such as might be had at an industrial school, nor a mere manual training, such as might be supplied by a foreman of a workshop, or by a foreman of an experimental farm. If any would have only a school with equal scraps of labor and of instruction, or something other than a college, they would not obey the national law. . .

Whatever else might be done under the national law of 1862, scientific and classical studies, as already stated, were not to be excluded, were, therefore, to be preserved, and this is set forth at the very starting point, but the national bounty act brought to the front "branches of learning related to agriculture and the mechanic arts"— learning in the broad fields of the practical sciences, and none are broader than those related to agriculture. The useful was to have greater prominence in the eyes of students, as it will have in all their after-life, and not stand unequal and shame-faced even in the presence of ancient literature. . .

...

The fundamental idea was to offer an opportunity in every State for a liberal and larger education to larger numbers, not merely to those destined to sedentary professions, but to those much needing higher instruction for the world's business, for the industrial pursuits and professions of life."

Justin S. Morrill, Address, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Addresses Delivered . . June 21st, 1887 ... (Amherst, Mass.: J. E. Williams, 1887), p. 20.

7 Justin S. Morrill, An Address in Behalf of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College (Burlington, Vt.: Free Press Association, 1888), pp. 6, 10-1.

From the legislation itself and from Mr. Morrill's statements it seems clear that at least three purposes were embodied in the legislation:

1. A protest against the then characteristic dominance of the classics in higher education.

2. A desire to develop, at the college level, instruction relating to the practical activities of life.

3. An attempt to offer to those belonging to the industrial classes preparation for the "professions of life."

The emphasis in the legislation was on the class or group from which students came, rather than the one toward which they were headed. The land-grant institutions were meant to be colleges for those from the industrial group. The clear intent was that they should provide liberal and technical, including professional, preparation at the college level for the large middle class. These institutions represented a protest against the classical type of institution, which in that day offered virtually the only higher education available in the United States, and which, in general, served the leisure class and the professions as distinguished from the rank and file. Although it is recognized that State-supported higher education and the privately controlled higher institutions have also contributed to the development of the national idea of the place of higher education in a democracy, the land-grant colleges have undoubtedly been potent factors in the democratization of higher education.

During the early years of the development of land-grant colleges many differences of opinion existed as to the extent to which instruction was to be pitched at a professional level as contrasted with a more practical type of curriculum and instruction. The following quotation from a letter written by Dr. E. W. Hilgard, an early pioneer in land-grant college instruction, to Dean Davenport, of Illinois, regarding one of the subjects of discussion at a meeting of agricultural college representatives held in 1871, illustrates these differing opinions:

It followed the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, from where a number of men, including myself, went to Chicago as the result of a call issued some time before by a com

mittee of agricultural college men, to discuss the question of agricultural education, which at that time already had begun to be sharply contested between the advocates of the "Michigan plan," also followed by Pennsylvania, and those who, with the Sheffield School, Harvard, and a few others, favored the university grade of agricultural education. I, after a few years' trial of the Michigan plan at the University of Mississippi (which I then represented), contended strongly for the second, with the corollary that in order to interest the farmers, experimental work bearing directly upon each State's practical problems, is the prime need. We had quite a lively time, Michigan battling strongly for the student-labor plan, as the only "practical" one, and which would not "educate the students away from the farm." Gilman. then librarian of Yale, and I were the chief fighters on the university side, seconded in a measure by Gregory (president of Illinois University) and the delegates from Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Under the terms of the First Morrill Act there was granted to each State, for the support of a college that would provide a "liberal and practical education of the industrial classes . . 30,000 acres of land for each Senator and Representative that it then had in the United States Congress. Each State was to receive title to such land if there was a sufficient amount belonging to the Federal Government within its boundaries to satisfy its claims. Otherwise, the State was to receive scrip that would give to it the right to select land from the national domain elsewhere. The Act provided further that the funds realized from the sale of all lands thus conveyed to the States should be retained forever and that only the income from them should be used for the support of the institutions which were to be created."

The First Morrill Act was in two respects a marked departure from the preceding grants-in-aid that had been made to the States for education. In the first place, the type of education to be aided was much more definitely specified than it had been in preceding grants. Second, a formula for distribution was used that took cognizance of the needs, at least roughly, of the several States. It provided for the allocation of 30,000 acres of land to each State for each Senator and each Representative. As will be shown later, the recognition of need was abandoned in

8 Quoted by True, op. cit., p. 118.

Secs. 1, 2, 4.