Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act Totally Explained

Everything about Morrill Act Of 1862 totally explained

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges.
   For fifteen years prior to the first introduction of the bill in 1857, there was a political movement calling for the creation of agriculture colleges. The movement was lead by Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois College. On February 8, 1853, the Illinois legislature adopted a resolution, drafted by Turner, calling for the Illinois congressional delegation to work to enact a land-grant bill to fund a system of industrial colleges, one in each state. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois believed it was advisable that the bill should be introduced by an eastern congressman, and two months later Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont introduced his bill.
   Unlike the Turner Plan, which provided an equal grant to each state, the Morrill bill allocated land based on the number of senators and representative each state has in Congress. This was more advantageous to the more populous eastern states.
   The Morrill Act was first proposed in 1857, and was passed by Congress in 1859, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1861, Morrill resubmitted the act with the amendment that the proposed institutions would teach military tactics as well as engineering and agriculture. Aided by the secession of many states that didn't support the plans, this reconfigured Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862.
   The purpose of the land-grant colleges was:

without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactic, to teach 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.

Under the act, each eligible state received a total of 30,000 acres (121 km²) of federal land, either within or contiguous to its boundaries, for each member of congress the state had as of the census of 1860. This land, or the proceeds from its sale, was to be used toward establishing and funding the educational institutions described above. Under provision six of the Act, "No State while in a condition of rebellion or insurrection against the government of the United States shall be entitled to the benefit of this act," in reference to the recent secession of several Southern states and the currently raging American Civil War. After the war, however, the 1862 Act was extended to the former Confederate states; it was eventually extended to every state and territory, including those created after 1862. If the federal land within a state was insufficient to meet that state's land grant, the state was issued "scrip" which authorized the state to select federal lands in other states to fund of its institution. For example, New York carefully selected valuable timber land in Wisconsin to fund Cornell University. As a result, even though New York received only one-tenth of the 1862 land grant, the university’s management of that scrip yielded one third of the total grant revenues generated by all the states. Overall, the 1862 Morrill Act allocated of land, which when sold yielded a collective endowment of $7.55 million.
   A second Morrill Act in 1890 was also aimed at the former Confederate states. This act required each state to show that race wasn't an admissions criterion, or else to designate a separate land-grant institution for persons of color. Among the seventy colleges and universities which eventually evolved from the Morrill Acts are several of today's Historically Black colleges and universities (indicated below with *). Though the 1890 Act granted cash instead of land, it granted colleges under that act the same legal standing as the 1862 Act colleges; hence the term "land-grant college" properly applies to both groups.
   Later on, other colleges such as the University of the District of Columbia and the "1994 land-grant colleges" for Native Americans were also awarded cash by Congress in lieu of land to achieve "land-grant" status.
   With a few exceptions, nearly all of the Land-Grant Colleges are public.
   Congress later recognized the need to disseminate the knowledge gained at the land-grant colleges to farmers and homemakers. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 started federal funding of cooperative extension, with the land-grant universities' agents being sent to virtually every county of every state. Starting in 1887, Congress also funded agricultural experiment stations and various categories of agricultural and veterinary research "under direction of" the land-grant universities. In some states, the annual federal appropriations to the land-grant college under these laws exceed the current income from the original land grants. In the fiscal year 2006 USDA Budget, $1.033 billion went to research and cooperative extension activities nationwide. The President has proposed $1.035 billion for fiscal year 2008.

Morrill Land-Grant colleges and universities

Note: of the 106 Land-Grant institutions, all but two (the Community College of Micronesia, and Northern Marianas College) are members of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). The 31 tribal colleges of 1994 are represented as a system by the single membership of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). * denotes Historically Black colleges and universities.

Alabama

Alabama A&M University *
Auburn University
Tuskegee University * ť (Though Alabama A&M is Alabama's official 1890 Morrill Act institution, Tuskegee's mission is so similar to those of the 1890 institutions that it's almost universally regarded as one of them. Tuskegee is a land-grant member of NASULGC, as are Alabama A&M and Auburn; however, only Alabama A&M and Auburn formally participate in the now-combined Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), with Tuskegee listed as a "cooperating partner" in ACES. (External Link) (External Link) Tuskegee is also explicitly granted the same status as the 1890 institutions in a number of U.S. laws.)

Alaska

University of Alaska System

American Samoa

American Samoa Community College

Arizona

University of Arizona

Arkansas

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff *

California

University of California (the system is the state's land-grant member of NASULGC; UC Berkeley was its original land-grant college, but UC Davis later assumed much of that role)

Colorado

Colorado State University

Connecticut

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

University of Connecticut

Delaware

Delaware State University *

University of Delaware

District of Columbia

University of the District of Columbia

Florida

Florida A&M University *

University of Florida

Georgia

Fort Valley State University *

University of Georgia

Guam

University of Guam

Hawaii

University of Hawaii

Idaho

University of Idaho

Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Indiana

Purdue University

Iowa

Iowa State University

Kansas

Kansas State University

Kentucky

Kentucky State University *

University of Kentucky

Louisiana

Louisiana State University System

Southern University and A&M College *

Maine

University of Maine

Maryland

University of Maryland Eastern Shore *

University of Maryland, College Park

Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michigan

Michigan State University (Founded in 1855, this was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for the 1862 Morrill Act.)

Minnesota

University of Minnesota

Mississippi

Alcorn State University *

Mississippi State University

Missouri

Lincoln University *

University of Missouri

Montana

Montana State University

Nebraska

University of Nebraska

Nevada

University of Nevada, Reno

New Hampshire

University of New Hampshire

New Jersey

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey ť * New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education

New Mexico

New Mexico State University

New York

Cornell University

North Carolina

North Carolina A&T State University *

North Carolina State University

North Dakota

North Dakota State University

Ohio

The Ohio State University

Oklahoma

Langston University *

Oklahoma State University

Oregon

Oregon State University

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania State University

Puerto Rico

University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

Rhode Island

University of Rhode Island

South Carolina

Clemson University

South Carolina State University *

South Dakota

South Dakota State University

Tennessee

Tennessee State University *

University of Tennessee

Texas

Prairie View A&M University *

Texas A&M University

Utah

Utah State University

Vermont

University of Vermont

Virgin Islands

University of the Virgin Islands *

Virginia

American Indian Higher Education Consortium

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Virginia State University *

Washington

Washington State University

West Virginia

West Virginia University

West Virginia State University *

Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Wyoming

University of Wyoming Source: National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (External Link

)Further Information

Get more info on 'Morrill Act Of 1862'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://morrill_land-grant_colleges_act.totallyexplained.com">Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.