Editing Morrill Land-Grant Acts (section)

==Land-grant colleges==
{{main|Land-grant university}}
[[File:Land_Grant_Colleges_Map.svg|400px|right|thumbnail|Map of [[List of land-grant universities|most land-grant universities]] in the United States including the date of the land grant]]
[[Image:UMD Morrill Hall.JPG|thumb|right|Morrill Hall, on the campus of the [[University of Maryland, College Park]] (a land-grant university), is named for Senator [[Justin Morrill]], in honor of the act he sponsored.]]
[[File:Morrill Hall, Cornell University, west facade.jpg|thumb|[[Morrill Hall (Cornell University)|Morrill Hall]], the first building of [[Cornell University]], is named for Senator [[Justin Morrill]], in honor of the Morrill Land-Grant act.]]
[[Image:Beaumont Tower 10 2007 BR.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Beaumont Tower]] at [[Michigan State University]] marks the site of [[College Hall (Michigan State University)|College Hall]] which is the first building in the United States to teach agricultural science.]]

The purpose of the land-grant colleges was:
 
<blockquote>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.<ref>{{USC|7|304}}</ref></blockquote>

From the early to mid-19th century the federal government, through 162 violence-backed cessions, expropriated approximately 10.7 million acres of land from 245 tribal nations and divided it into roughly 80,000 parcels for redistribution.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1=Robert |last2=Ahtone |first2=Tristan |last3=Pearce |first3=Margaret |last4=Goodluck |first4=Kalen |last5=McGhee |first5=Geoff |last6=Leff |first6=Cody |last7=Lanpher |first7=Katherine |last8=Salinas |first8=Taryn | title=Land-Grab Universities |journal=High Country News |date=March 30, 2020 |url=https://www.landgrabu.org/ |access-date=April 21, 2020}}</ref> Under the act, each eligible state received {{convert|30000|acre|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 United States|Southern]] states and the contemporaneously raging [[American Civil War]]. However, after the war, in the 1870s, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina each assigned one African American college land grant status; these were, respectively, Alcorn University, Hampton Institute, and Claflin University.<ref>John W. Davis, "The Negro Land-Grant College," 2 ''Journal of Negro Education'' p.312 (1933)</ref>

In 1890 the 1862 Act was extended to the former Confederate states (see below for more detailed information), and 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 its institution.<ref>{{USC|7|302}}</ref> For example, [[New York (state)|New York]] carefully selected valuable timber land in [[Wisconsin]] to fund [[Cornell University]].<ref name=Whalen>{{cite web|url=https://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000046.pdf|first=Michael L.|last=Whalen|title=A Land-Grant University|publisher=Cornell University|date=May 2001|access-date=August 25, 2020|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228163104/http://www.cornell.edu/landgrant/resources/Land_Grant_Univ_Whalen.pdf|archive-date=February 28, 2008}}</ref>{{rp|9}} The resulting management of this scrip by the university yielded one third of the total grant revenues generated by all the states, even though New York received only one-tenth of the 1862 land grant.<ref name=Whalen />{{rp|10}} Overall, the 1862 Morrill Act allocated {{convert|17400000|acre|km2}} of land, which when sold yielded a collective endowment of $7.55 million.<ref name=Whalen />{{rp|8}}

On September 12, 1862, the [[state of Iowa]] was the first to accept the terms of the Morrill Act which provided the funding boost needed for the fledgling State Agricultural College and Model Farm (eventually renamed [[Iowa State University]] of Science and Technology).<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Iowa State: Time Line, 1858–1874 |url=http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/template/timeline-1858.html |year=2006 |publisher=Iowa State University |access-date=9 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090513215211/http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/template/timeline-1858.html |archive-date=13 May 2009 }}</ref> The first land-grant institution actually created under the Act was [[Kansas State University]], which was established on February 16, 1863, and opened on September 2, 1863.<ref name= Nation>{{Citation | title = The National Schools of Science | journal = The Nation | page = 409 | date = November 21, 1867 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Mf0xAQAAIAAJ&q=land+grant+kansas+february+16%2C+1863+pennsylvania+April&pg=PA409 }}</ref>

The land grant colleges transformed [[engineering]] education in America and boosted the United States into a position of leader in technical education. Before the Civil War, American colleges primarily trained students in [[classical studies]] and the [[liberal arts]]. For the most part, only the relatively affluent could afford higher education, and entrance requirements often required proficiency in the [[dead language]]s of [[Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek]]. The first Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees, which typically required no Latin, came into being around 1850.<ref>Frederick Rudolph, ''Curriculum: A History of the American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636'' p.36 (1978)</ref> American engineers were mostly educated at the [[United States Military Academy]], on fortress construction, and their instructors were the authors of most engineering texts of the day. The Morrill Act changed all of that. Though the Congressional debates about the Act were largely focused on benefits to agriculture, the [[mechanic arts]] were specifically included in the Act's language, meaning [[applied science]]s and [[engineering]]. The Act prohibited spending the [[Financial endowment|endowment]] on constructing buildings as expensive and unnecessary, so instead the tools for engineering education increased, such as textbooks, laboratories and equipment. The number of engineers skyrocketed. Whereas in 1866 there were around 300 American men who had graduated with engineering degrees and only six reputable colleges granting them, just four years later there were 21 colleges offering engineering degrees and the total number of engineers graduated had tripled to 866. The following decade added another 2,249 engineers, and by 1911 the United States was graduating 3,000 engineers a year, with a total of 38,000 in the work force. At the time, Germany was graduating 1,800 engineers per year. The US had become the leader in technical education just 50 years after passage of the Morrill Act.<ref name= Williams>{{Citation | title = Morrill Act's Contribution to Engineering's Foundation | journal = Tau Beta Pi the Bent |date= Spring 2009 | url=http://www.tbp.org/pubs/Features/Sp09Williams.pdf |first=Daniel E. |last=Williams}}</ref>

With a few exceptions (including Cornell University and the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]), nearly all of the land-grant colleges are public.  (Cornell University, while private, administers several state-supported [[statutory college]]s that fulfill its public land-grant mission to the state of New York.)

To maintain their status as land-grant colleges, a number of programs are required to be maintained by the college. These include programs in [[agriculture]] and [[engineering]], as well as a [[Reserve Officers' Training Corps]] program.