Land-grant University

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Justin Smith Morrill (1810-1898), goes back to the legislation that establishing the grant land Universities led

As a land-grant universities in the are United States state universities designated whose founding and financing decided at two in 1862 and 1890 as Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act laws designated based. These laws were named after their initiator Justin Smith Morrill , who was a member of the House of Representatives from 1855 to 1867 and of the Senate from 1867 to 1898 . On the basis of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts , the federal government transferred land ownership to the American states with the proviso that the proceeds from the sale or use of this land were used for the construction and running costs of universities.

According to the provisions of the law, the focus of training at these universities should be agriculture , engineering and military sciences . The aim of establishing these universities was above all to support industrialization in the USA through massive training of skilled workers, the expansion of academic education beyond the classical natural sciences and humanities to subjects with practical relevance as well as the expansion of the access of broad sections of the population to higher education.

Historical development

While some states transferred the educational mandate resulting from the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts and the associated financial resources to existing universities, in most states new institutions were founded. In many cases, these developed into full universities whose range of courses now goes far beyond the original intention. There is currently at least one university in each state with land-grant university status . Since the second Morrill Land-Grant Act passed in 1890 contained the condition that the corresponding funds were either guaranteed unrestricted access for students of African American origin to the respective universities or that additional universities were to be set up for these students, others emerged from 1890, especially in the southern states Colleges. For this reason, there are now two universities in most of the southern states that have their origins as land-grant universities and of which usually one is counted among the historic Afro-American colleges and universities . A total of 69 universities were founded, including Cornell University , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , the University of Wisconsin – Madison , the University of North Dakota , the University of South Dakota , the University of Michigan , the University of Minnesota , the University of Missouri , the University of Illinois, and the University of Arkansas . Of these 69 colleges, 16 belonged to the Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The first college founded on the basis of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 was what is now Kansas State University , established in 1863 as the Kansas State Agricultural College .

The land-grant colleges established under the Morill Act of 1862 have long been ridiculed by others as 'cow colleges'. They were only equipped with the bare essentials, often poorly managed, and there were no professors who could teach agriculture. In Ithaca and Michigan, but also Illinois, Massachusetts, Kansas, Indiana and Iowa, there were committed men who did exemplary work and whose students were soon in demand as teachers everywhere.

The second Morrill Act of 1890 provided the colleges with $ 25,000 annually. In order to receive this money, the state had to prove that race or color was not an entry criterion, or that they had established separate colleges for African-Americans. This law created 17 colleges, known as 1890 land grants.

The oldest land-grant university is Rutgers University , which has existed since 1766 and was assigned the relevant tasks and funding by the state of New Jersey in 1864 .

The Hatch Act , named after William H. Hatch and passed in March 1887, provided additional federal grants for those states that set up an agricultural experimental station in collaboration with their land grant colleges. These Agricultural Experiment Stations were run by the United States Department of Agriculture and were used to conduct research on agricultural crops and animals . This included soil analysis , fertilization , investigation of cultivation methods , the advantages of crop rotation , help with diseases in plants and animals, research on feed and other aspects. The findings were published by the Ministry of Agriculture through annual reports to the office of the experimental stations. In 1914, the US Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act , which gave agricultural colleges and universities the so-called extension as a third task alongside teaching and research . The institutions should now help to ensure that the knowledge they have gained from vocational training, agriculture and housekeeping also reached those people who were unable to study for various reasons. The information was disseminated across the country by special trainers.

With the so-called "Nelson Act" of March 4, 1907 an amendment to the Morill Acts of 1862 and 1890 was ratified, which increased the state subsidies to $ 50,000 per year. However, they were not allowed to be accumulated and only carried over to the next year upon request.

Impact until today

The University of the District of Columbia received the status of a land-grant university in 1967 with a payment of 7.24 million US dollars instead of a land transfer . The American outlying areas of Guam , Micronesia , American Samoa , the Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands each received three million US dollars in 1972 to set up and expand corresponding educational institutions. In 1994, 29 universities that are located on or near Indian reservations and traditionally primarily serve the higher education of Native Americans were granted land-grant university status. On behalf of some universities belonging to the land-grant universities, such as Texas A&M University and Florida A&M University , the abbreviation “A&M” for Agricultural and Mechanical reminds of the historical background, as does the name Aggies for the students, the alumni or the sports teams of a number of universities. Almost all universities with the status of a land-grant university are united in the umbrella organization Association of Public and Land-grant Universities . The status as a land grant university is still important for the financing of research projects.

See also

literature

  • The land-grant tradition. Published by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, Washington DC 2008
  • G. Lester Anderson (Ed.): Land-Grant Universities and Their Continuing Challenge. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 1976
  • Coy F. Cross: Justin Smith Morrill: Father of the Land-Grant Colleges. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 1999
  • Edward Danforth Eddy: Colleges for Our Land and Time; The Land-Grant Idea in American Education. Greenwood Press, Westport 1973
  • Joseph Bailey Edmond: The Magnificent Charter: The Origin and Role of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. Exposition Press, Hicksville 1978
  • Allan Nevins: The Origins of the Land-Grant Colleges and State Universities: A Brief Account of the Morrill Act of 1862 and Its Results. Civil War Centennial Commission, Washington 1962
  • Roger L. Williams: The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land-Grant College Movement. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 1991
  • United States Office of Experiment Stations reports ( Internet Archive )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State of Minnesota Signs Acceptance of Land by Congress / Senate Minnesota Legislature, Tuesday, January 27, 1863 (Printed, Joint Resolution on Congressional Donation of Lands for Agricultural and Mechanical College)
  2. ^ List of 1890 land grants. ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. US Department of Agriculture @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nal.usda.gov
  3. ^ US Department of Agriculture: Handbook of Experiment Station Work. Published by authority of the Secretary of Agriculture United States Government Printing Office , Washington 1893, pp. 3-8
  4. ↑ Smith-Lever Act ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jschell.myweb.uga.edu