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.8

gress.

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 ConEach 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.9

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.

much of the succeeding legislation that had to do with the maintenance of resident instruction.

The funds derived from the sale of lands conveyed to the States under the terms of the First Morrill Act were, of course, unequal in the beginning and have since been managed with varying degrees of wisdom and foresight. At present the annual incomes from funds range from almost nothing in some States to as much as $180,000 in one State.10 Although in the beginning the incomes derived from these original land grants constituted a large part of the total receipts of the land-grant institutions, such incomes at present represent barely 1 percent of their total receipts, primarily because of the marked increases in Federal and State appropriations."1

9912

Second Morrill Act.-In 1890 Congress passed the Second Morrill Act. The purpose of this legislation was to provide for the more complete endowment and maintenance of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. By this legislation each State and Territory received $15,000 for the year ending June 30, 1890. This sum was to be increased by annual increments of $1,000 annually until each State and Territory was receiving $25,000 yearly under the Act.13

Two limitations were placed on the States in the expenditure of these grants:

1. They were ". . . to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural and economic science, with special reference to their applications in the industries of life, and to the facilities for such in

10 See Walter J. Greenleaf, Preliminary Report: Land-Grant Colleges and Universities: Year Ended June 30, 1936, U. S. Office of Education Circular 168 (multilithed, 1936), pp. 24-5. Minnesota is the only State receiving more than about $60,000 per year; this State received approximately $270,000 in 1936 and $180,000 in 1937. See Walter J. Greenleaf, op. cit., and Preliminary Report: Land-Grant Colleges and Universities: Year Ended June 30, 1937, U. S. Office of Education Circular 172 (multilithed, 1937), pp. 26-7.

11 In 1933-34, total income from the 1862 land-grant fund was $1,127,344; grand total receipts were $128,897,150. See U. S. Office of Education, Bulletin, 1935, No. 2, Biennial Survey of Education: 1932-1934 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), ch. IV, pp. 435, 492. See also Table 1, p. 16.

12 Sec. 1. For text of Act see Appendix A.

18 Ibid.

14

struction.' It will be observed that the provisions with

reference to the range of subjects that may be taught by the use of these funds is more restricted than are the provisions of the First Morrill Act.

2. “. . . no money shall be paid out under this act to any State or Territory for the support and maintenance of a college where a distinction of race or color is made in the admission of students, but the establishment and maintenance of such colleges separately for white and colored students shall be held to be a compliance with the provisions of this act if the funds received in such State or Territory be equitably divided. . . ."15 The Act then gives a definition of what shall constitute an equitable division. This provision was the result of a failure on the part of many of the Southern States to give adequate recognition to the Negro under the First Morrill Act.16 The data on the allocation of Federal funds in those States in which separate schools for the races are maintained indicate that this restriction has been effective.1

Nelson Amendment.-The Nelson Amendment, attached to the act making appropriations for the United States Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1908, is supplementary to the Second Morrill Act. Instruction is under the same limitation of subjects as obtains in that Act except "... colleges may use a portion of this money for providing courses for the special preparation of instructors for teaching the elements of agriculture and the mechanic arts." 18 This proviso was added as the result of a growing interest in the development of instruction in agriculture at the secondary school level and a dearth of adequately prepared teachers. 19 The original grant was $5,000 a year to each State. This amount was increased at the rate of $5,000 a year until it reached the sum of $25,000.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 True, op. cit., pp. 195–6.

17 See Table 3, p. 26.

18 For text of Act see Appendix A.

19 True, op. cit., F. 273.

Bankhead-Jones Act.-The most recent legislation relating to the maintenance of resident instruction in the land-grant colleges, the Bankhead-Jones Act passed in 1935, is an authorization for an increase in the annual grants to these institutions. Under its provisions,20 there have been appropriated for resident instruction, in addition to appropriations previously authorized, the sums of $980,000 for the fiscal year 1936, $1,480,000 for 1937, $1,980,000 for 1938, $2,480,000 for 1939, and $2,480,000 for 1940. If appropriations are made in accordance with authorizations, Federal grants to the States and Territories for resident instruction under the various statutes will continue at approximately $6,000,000 annually. (See Table 1.)

In the conduct of resident instruction the provisions of the Second Morrill Act "... shall apply to the use and payment of sums appropriated in pursuance of this section." 21 This proviso places the same restriction on the subjects that may be taught by the use of funds appropriated pursuant to the Bankhead-Jones Act as obtains in the case of the Second Morrill grants, and it also requires an equitable distribution among the races in those States in which separate schools for the white and Negro races are maintained.

The Bankhead-Jones Act recognizes a principle of apportionment that was incorporated in the First Morrill Act. The First Morrill Act, by apportioning to each State 30,000 acres of land for ". . . each senator and representative in Congress . . .", recognized within limits at least the magnitude of the educational problem of the several States. The grants under the Second Morrill Act and the Nelson Amendment represented a departure from this principle in that all States received equal amounts.

20 Sec. 22. For text of Act see Appendix A.

21 Sec. 22b.