Bulletin

Page.

Tables of the land-grant colleges and the 1862 land-grant fund as of June 30, 1914.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION,
Washington, June 23, 1917.

SIR: The act of July 2, 1862, "donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts," led to the establishment of a group of higher institutions, at least one in each State, having direct relations with the Federal Government and dedicated to a common purpose. The purpose as stated in the act was "the promotion of the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." As translated in institutional practice it has meant the professional training of men and women in agriculture, home economics, and various branches of engineering.

In most of the fields in which these colleges now give training, however, there was not in 1862 an organized body of scientific knowledge sufficient to furnish working material for courses such as higher institutions are expected to give. Before the common purpose which has informed these colleges could be partially realized, it has been necessary by research and experimentation to develop several sciences and to organize the applications of them into scientific professional curricula. The land-grant colleges have contributed largely to the accomplishment of these things. Their efforts have led to the establishment of several new professions, to the stimulation of new achievement in both the great industrial fields to which they minister, to the higher training of numerous young persons who could not or would not have sought it in the older channels, and to the profound modification of both the doctrine and the content of higher education throughout the country. The influence which these colleges have had on the development of American life is perhaps the most farreaching influence that has come from any educational source in the half century since the passage of the land-grant act. Taken together, these institutions represent America's most distinctive contribution to higher educational theory and practice.

Now that the position of the land-grant colleges has become so plain, it is of special interest that all important matters relating to their history and their contemporaneous status should be recorded. One of the obscure chapters in the history of these institutions has been the disposition made by the various States of the original land grant of 1862, which provided for the establishment of the institutions. I have, therefore, requested Mr. Benjamin F. Andrews, specialist in land-grant college statistics, to investigate this question. The document submitted herewith contains the result of his researches. I recommend its publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education.

Respectfully submitted.

The SECRETARY OF THE INTEROR.

P. P. CLAXTON,

Commissioner.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

In compiling the foregoing history acknowledgment is made of the following aids and authorities:

Publications of the United States Bureau of Education, especially the annual reports of land-grant colleges, circulars of information, histories of education in the various States, and Bulletin, 1905, No. 348, "General Laws Relating to Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges."

Annual reports and catalogues from the land-grant colleges from 1862 to 1916, inclusive.

Reports of State land boards, auditors, treasurers, comptrollers, and other State officials.

"History of the Agricultural College Land Grant of July 2, 1862.”— Halliday and Finch.

"Federal and State Aid to Higher Education."-Blackmar. "National Legislation Concerning Education."-Germann. "Forty Years of the University of Minnesota."-E. Bird Johnson. "History of the University of Arkansas."-Reynolds and Thomas. "History of the University of North Carolina."-K. B. Battle. "History of Reconstruction, Why the Solid South."—Herbert. Session laws and codes of the various States and of the United States.

Thanks are due to Mr. L. A. Kalbach, former specialist in landgrant college statistics and later chief clerk of the Bureau of Education, for much timely assistance from his invaluable experience, and also to those State and college officers who have taken time and trouble to seek out and forward special information and statistics and to aid with advice and suggestions.

BENJ. F. ANDREWS,

Specialist in Land-Grant College Statistics.

THE LAND GRANT OF 1862 AND THE LAND-GRANT

COLLEGES.

MORRILL LAND-GRANT ACT OF 1862.

AN ACT Donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there be granted to the several States, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, 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: Provided, That no mineral lands shall be selected or purchased under the provisions of this act.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the land aforesaid, after being surveyed, shall be apportioned to the several States in sections or subdivisions of sections, not less than one-quarter of a section; and wherever 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 the 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 of this act 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: Provided, That in no case shall any State to which land scrip may thus be issued be allowed to locate the same within the limits of any other State or of any Territory of the United States; but their assignees may thus locate said land scrip upon any of the unappropriated lands of the United States subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 or less an acre: And provided further, That not more than one million acres shall be located by such assignees in any one of the States: And provided further, That no such location shall be made before one year from the passage of this act.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That all the expenses of management, superintendence, and taxes from date of selection of said lands previous to their sales and all expenses incurred in the management and disbursement of moneys which may be received therefrom shall be paid by the States to which they may belong, out of the treasury of said States, so that the entire proceeds of the sale of said lands shall be applied, without any diminution whatever, to the purposes hereinafter mentioned. SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That all moneys derived from the sale of the lands aforesaid by the States to which the lands are apportioned, and from the sales of land scrip herein before 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 moneys so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished, except so far as may be provided in section fifth of this act, and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this act to the

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