Written Assignment 1: Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 & 1890
Introduction
During a period of economic changes and developments in the higher education realm, “The Morrill Act of 1862 stands out as path breaking legislation that signaled the entrance of the federal government into public policy dealing with creation of the land-grant college.” (Thelin, 2011, p. 74). Farmers and other impoverished workers were not afforded the opportunity to have access to higher education. Already developed institutions were updating and changing their Charters to gain financial assistance, while perspective college-builders were seeking charters.
Land was becoming more valuable to the federal government in the conceptual higher education world and became
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By looking at this fact, another purpose derived from the land grant was that the bill provided funding that should be, “used to endow at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanical arts” (Hofstadter and Smith, 1961, p.568). The bill also provided funding to higher education by giving railroad textile, oil and steel tycoons the notion that their, “… millions would be used to support the few young people interested in studying psychology or religion.” (Cohen, 2010, p. …show more content…
Historically, the Morrill Act of 1862 predominantly affected and was applicable to the whit population. “A second Morrill Act was then passed in 1890, providing for the expansion of access to higher education for African-Americans and the creation of a separate African-American land-grant institutions (Alexander,2017, p. 29). The founder of the first Morrill Act, Justin Morrill, wanted to diversify the higher education realm. “Abraham Lincoln signed Morrill's second agriculture-school bill into law. Along with another measure he championed, in 1890, it created a system of land-grant colleges that rooted agriculture firmly in university research and helped democratize American higher education, creating institutions not for the sons and daughters of the upper classes but for the children of farmers” (Biemiller, 2012). Once again, the notion that underclassmen could benefit from the knowledge produced by high education by helping boost economic productivity was used to establish the second Morrill