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classes and the organization of industrial universities. His plan, which is outlined as follows, was based on the presumption that society is made up of two classes-professional and industrial.

All civilized society is, necessarily, divided into two distinct cooperative, not antagonistic classes: A small class, whose proper business it is to teach the true principles of religion, law, medicine, science, art, and literature; and a much larger class, who are engaged in some form of labor in agriculture, commerce, and the arts. . . . To enable these industrial classes to realize its benefits in practical life, we need a university for the industrial classes in each of the States, with their consequent subordinate institutes, lyceums, and high schools in each of the counties and towns.

There should be connected with such an institution, in this State, a sufficient quantity of land of variable soil and aspect, for all its needful annual experiments and processes in the great interests of agriculture and horticulture. Buildings of appropriate size and construction for all ordinary and special uses; a complete philosophical, chemical, anatomical, and industrial apparatus; a general cabinet, embracing everything that relates to, illustrates, or facilitates any one of the industrial arts; especially all sorts of animals, birds, reptiles, insects, trees, shrubs, and plants found in this State and adjacent States.

Instruction should be constantly given in all those studies and sciences, of whatever sort, which tend to throw light upon any art or employment, which any student may desire to master, or upon any duty he may be called upon to perform; or which may tend to secure his moral, civil, social, and industrial perfection, as a man.1

In 1852 Turner proposed that Congress make a land grant to each State for the establishment of industrial' universities in the following

terms:

And I am satisfied that if the farmers and their friends will now but exert themselves they can speedily secure for this State and for each State in the Union, an appropriation of public lands adequate to create and endow in the most liberal manner, a general system of industrial education, more glorious in its design and more beneficial in its results than the world has ever seen before.1

As a result of Turner's advocacy of industrial universities, popular sentiment was aroused in the State of Illinois. Farmers' organizations became interested in the project. In 1852 the Illinois farmer's convention adopted resolutions petitioning Congress to endow such institutions with the proceeds from the sale of public lands and in 1853 the State Legislature of Illinois passed a joint resolution asking for support by the Federal Government.

In the meanwhile the movement for higher education of the masses had developed in other States, but it seemed to be concentrated on the idea of the establishment of agricultural colleges. This was due to the fact that agriculture was the principal industry of the country at this time and mechanic arts were closely related and virtually a part of the agricultural industry. The State of Michigan actually

1 True, Alfred Charles. Pp. 86 and 87.

A History of Agricultural Education in the United States.

organized an agricultural college supported by public funds. Eugene Davenport, a graduate of the Michigan State College and dean emeritus of the college of agriculture, University of Illinois, describes the situation in the following memorandum especially prepared for this survey:

While not the first institution of college grade to attempt the teaching of agriculture, the Michigan Agricultural College is the oldest college of its kind in America. It was the first practical fruits of the agitation for education of college grade adapted to the farming profession that swept over the country in the late forties and the early fifties. In those days all colleges were established and maintained on private foundations supplemented by tuition fees. The start was made in four States at about the same time-Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan-all on private foundation except the latter and all failed except Pennsylvania which hung in the balance until the State took it over, at first in part, and finally completely. In the meantime, Michigan was organized and at work.

The reason was this: During the public discussion for education of college grade adapted to the farming profession Michigan was holding a convention for the revision of the State constitution. It so happened that one of the delegates was a warm friend of the new movement and he succeeded in getting a clause into the constitution obligating the State to establish and maintain an agricultural "school" either as an independent institution or as a department of the university. This was in 1850.

The same year the legislature memorialized Congress calling for a gift of 300,000 acres of public land for the support of the agricultural school in Michigan and the same year the State agricultural society petitioned the legislature to establish such a college as the constitution contemplated. The same petition was renewed in 1852 and the legislature of 1855 established such a "school," as an independent "college" to be located on a tract of land to be selected within 10 miles of Lansing. The college was opened May 13, 1857, with a faculty of six and a student enrollment of 73.

At the same time that Michigan was taking steps to establish a State-controlled agricultural college, Marshall P. Wilder was leading a movement for the establishment of an agricultural school in Massachusetts. Similarly in Pennsylvania the State agricultural society agitated the organization of a school for the education of farmers, which later became known as the "Farmers' High School." The society succeeded in securing assistance from the State legislature and through subscriptions established the school as a private institution in 1859. In the State of Maryland the movement for agricultural and practical education for the farmer also developed. Under the leadership of the State agricultural society an agricultural college was chartered by the State legislature and opened in 1859, funds having been raised through stock subscriptions and the State having made a grant of $6,000 annually. The establishment of both an agricultural and a mechanics college for the education of the masses was agitated in New York as early as 1849. The mechanics college

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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.

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.

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

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