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 * * * * 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. * * * 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 TABLE 1.-Data on enforcement of terms of first Morrill Act by the States-Con. Date of Date of opening organi- of landzation grant of land- college New Mexico College of Agriculture and Me North Carolina State College. 1 Scrip bought by Mr. Cornell yielding later through resale $5,460,038 for institution. $103,482 cash and $732,155 deferred payments on lands sold as of 1916. The first State to accept the act was Iowa in September, 1862. Vermont, the home State of Representative Morrill, expressed acceptance in October and the State of Connecticut in December of the same year. As shown by the table, the act was accepted by 14 States in 1863, by 3 in 1864, by 1 in 1865, by 6 in 1866, by 4 in 1867, by 3 in 1868, by 1 in 1869, and by 2 in 1870. Within a period of eight years after the passage of the first Morrill Act, 37 States had agreed to accept and carry out its provisions for the establishment of the new type of college. At the time of the enactment, the Nation was in the throes of Civil War. A provision of the law specifically provided that no State in rebellion against the United States should be entitled to benefit by the act. The result was that none of the Southern States was able to comply with its terms until after the termination of the war in 1865. With the end of the struggle, however, these States lost no time in expressing acceptance and during the next five years all of them had agreed to receive the Federal land grants and organize agricultural and mechanical colleges. Ten other States received the land grants under their enabling acts when they changed from the status of Territories and entered the Union. All of them were Western States, 1 accepting the act in 1879, 1 in 1888, 5 in 1889, 1 in 1890, 1 in 1898, and 1 in 1910. Oklahoma's land grant for the college was made under a special act of Congress, its terms being accepted in 1890 while the Territory of Alaska received a similar special grant in 1929. After the acceptance of the act, the next step was to receive the land grants from the Federal Government, dispose of the land or scrip, and create an endowment fund for the support of the institutions. As 27 States had practically no public lands within their borders, scrip was issued to them. The other 21 made selections of public lands in their own States and then proceeded to dispose of them. Under the terms of the law every State was entitled to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress with the result that the amounts varied to a considerable extent. The State receiving the largest grant was New York, the amount being 990,000 acres. Pennsylvania was second on the list with 780,000 acres, and Ohio was third with 630,000 acres. Illinois received the fourth largest amount with 480,000 acres and Indiana the fifth with 390,000 acres. The grants to the other States ranged from 350,000 down to 90,000 acres. There were seven States that received as little as 90,000 acres, the list including Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Nevada. Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. With the receipt of such large amounts of land and scrip, their disposal was no minor undertaking for the different State governments. It was necessary to decide upon the agency to assume the responsibility. In 16 States the regularly constituted State officials, such as governor, treasurer, or auditor, were charged with the sale of the land-grants while in 15 other States the work was turned over to a State board of land commissioners or a single State land commissioner. The board of trustees of the newly organized universities or colleges that were to receive the benefit of the endowment fund disposed of the grants in five States. A university or college fiscal agent was appointed in two other States to manage the entire sale of lands or scrip. The State sinking fund commission was assigned the work in one State, the State board of education in one, a special commission of university and school lands in four, a special commission of State officials in two, and the State surveyor general in one. There were two States that sold their scrip through a special fiscal agent in New York City. In the sale of the land and scrip, the practices of the States in the earlier days were at great variance. The standard Government prices for public lands at that time, as stated in the first Morrill Act, was $1.25 per acre. But in order to receive the proceeds immediately, scrip and land were thrown on the market by some States without apparent regard of the price offered. Forced sales resulted and the value of public land rapidly declined. In other instances the land was withheld from sale with the result that higher prices were realized. Other States came into the possession of their grants in subsequent years when there was a scarcity of public lands and they were able to dispose of them at much larger figures. Twentyeight of the States sold their land or scrip at less than the standard price of $1.25 per acre while 18 States obtained prices ranging above this amount. The lowest price at which any State sold the grants was 41 cents per acre. Another State received only 44 cents, and a third 49 cents. There were eight additional States that disposed of the land or scrip at less than one-half of the regular Government price. The highest price received by any State was $6.22 per acre for the land grants and in the case of two others prices varying from $5 to $6 per acre were received. Two States secured between $4 and $5 and two between $3 and $4. As a result of the widely different prices at which the land and scrip were sold to the States, the original endowment varied to a great extent. The total proceeds of the land-grant sale of Michigan amounted to $991,673, the largest of any of the States. Oklahoma received the second largest with $835,637, and California was third with $732,233. The total sale price of the land grants of 2 States was between $550,000 and $600,000, of 1 between $500,000 and $550,000, of 2 between $450,000 and $500,000, of 1 between $350,000 and $400,000, of 2 between $300,000 and $350,000, of 2 between $250,000 and $300,000, of 5 between $200,000 and $250,000, of 6 between $150,000 and $200,000, of 11 between $100,000 and $150,000. and of 6 between $50,000 and $100,000. In the management of the endowment and in compliance with the act providing that the colleges should receive an annual interest yield of 5 per cent, the greatest confusion developed as a result of the various practices adopted by the different States with the result that interest was defaulted in some cases, a part of the principal used for illegal purposes, and, in a few instances, the funds were lost. The prediction of President Buchanan, however, in his veto of the initial land-grant act introduced in Congress by Mr. Morrill, that the States would lose control of the gift and that the Federal Government could not follow the grant into States and enforce the application of the funds to the intended objects was not borne out by history. Upon their attention being called to the failure to comply with the law, most of the States have voluntarily replaced losses and made up discrepancies. Benjamin F. Andrews, who con |