The Land-Grant System of Higher Education
By
RICHARD
A.
HARVILL!
President, University of Arizona, Tucson
vVhen the :Morrill Act was adopted by Congress a century ago, it advanced the frontiers of higher education into new and relatively unexplored ground. Up to that time,
higher education in America had been dominated by the
classical traditions of Europe. Its primary function was
to produce an elite class of professional people-doctors,
lawyers, teachers, ministers-while
disdaining such downto-earth vocations as agriculture, business, manufacturing
and engineering.
It is important to observe and to emphasize that: (1)
the Morrill Act of 1862 establishing the Land-Grant System of higher education was signed by Abraham Lincoln at a time when the United States was experiencing
the darkest days of the bloodiest war in our history. This
Act set this country on the road to emancipation of its
system of higher education from outmoded traditions, just
as the Emancipation Proclamation of the same time (January 3, 1863) proclaimed the intention of the United
States to provide freedom for alt its people.
(2) This Act and several subsequent legislative enactments provided strong commitments of aid by the
federal government to higher education. The existing system of higher education was inadequate in terms of
courses of study, definition of objectives, and the amount
of financial support. Actually, lack of interest in college
or university education, either private or public, as then
conducted was a matter of grave concern to educators and
men of affairs. Enrollment in some of these institutions
was declining, and student interest was low. Many instances of this unsatisfactory condition were recorded in
the decade of the 1850's. The states and territories either
lacked or were unwilling to commit necessary resources
to higher education. That this experiment of federal
assistance and encouragement to higher education proved
highly successful is not denied anywhere today. Indeed
there are many who see a clear parallel between what
the federal government did in the perilous days of the
Civil War and some of the things it has been doing, or
seeking to do, during the post World War II period.
With the background of accomplishment, it is fitting
that we observe the one hundredth anniversary of the
founding of the Land-Grant system of higher education.
There is not a person in this audience or in any audience
that could be assembled in the United States whose life
has not been influenced by the developments that grew
out of the passage of the Morrill Act and the signature
on this Act by President Lincoln, July 2, 1862.
That historic piece of legislation gave major impetus to
the technological revolution, especially in agriculture,
which has transformed our country during the past century. Without the Morrill Act, or something very much
like it, tens of thousands of our college graduates might
never have had the benefits of higher education. And you,
as entomologists, will agree, I am sure, that the Morrill
Act and subsequent legislation have done much to promote
the advancement of science, including that important
branch which you represent.
This exclusiveness disturbed some of the far-seeing educators and statesmen of the time. They felt that in this
young and democratically minded country higher education should be for the many rather than the few and
should be expanded to cover the needs of the great
majority of the people.
At the forefront of this body of opinion were such men
as Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Itlinois and Justin Smith
Morrill of Vermont. It was Morrill who authored the
Land-Grant Act, which offered federal grants of land to
colleges "where the leading object shalt 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 mechanic arts ... in order
to provide the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of
life."
This famous passage is noted for its all-inclusiveness
but not for its clarity. Congressman Morrill was kept
busy for many years afterward trying to explain just
how he intended his phraseology to be interpreted. Although not emphasized positively in the Act, science was
given the greatest emphasis in Land-Grant colleges as
they became established. VIr e all know that scientific
studies have come to assume a central role in the LandGrant College System. The broad intentions of the Act
were, in any case, plain enough. Higher education was
to be extended into the vast and neglected fields of agriculture, engineering and related areas.
In 1887 the Congress passed legislation authorizing
federal funds for agricultural research in the Land-Grant
institutions. Thus did research officially become a major
function of higher education in the United States. Then
in 1914 the Smith-Lever Act was passed by the Congress
to provide for the Agricultural Extension Service-thus
making the three programs of the Land-Grant colleges,
resident instruction, research, and extension service.
The consequences of these acts on our educational system and, indeed, on our whole way of life have been pervasive and profound. At the time of the adoption of the
Land-Grant Act, the United States was 80 per cent rural,
employing methods of farming' that had changed little in
1,000 years. There is certainly no need to tell you, as
entomologists, what has happened since. Suffice it to say
that whereas a little over a century ago the average
American farmer produced only enough food for 4.53
people, today he feeds 25 people.
Of course, it has been a two-way street. In your field,
for instance, the people of the United States have been
repaid many times over for that miniscule fraction of
their tax dollar that has gone into the support of entomological studies. You have searched out our friends
and our enemies in the insect world. Where would we be
today in the unending-and,
at times, desperate-war
between man and his insect adversaries but for the knowledge and the weapons with which you have provided us?
1 Talk delivered at a plenary session, annual meeting of the
EntomologicalSociety of America, Phoenix, Arizona, December 5,
1962.
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Meanwhile, higher education has burgeoned in all directions. The Land-Grant colleges cannot of course claim
that this is all their doing. But I thi~k no fair-~1inded
person would challenge the observation that without the
Morrill Act, and the Land-Grant institutions that have
developed, the record of accomplishment would have been
considerably less significant.
placency. To be sure, the face of the United States and of
our educational system has been transformed.
But the
challenges facing our system of higher education are no
less formidable than those which confronted our ancestors
of the Turner-Morrill
era. The problems may be different, but our responsibility to tackle them is clear.
Looking back on this record we may be tempted to
scribble the words, "Mission Accomplished," across the
face of the century-old act and forget it. To do so would
be most unfortunate, for the motivation behind the legislation of 1862 is as meaningful to us today as it was
then. It is only the setting and the role that have changed.
When the Land-Grant system came into being most of
our population lived on the farms; today most of it lives
in the cities. By improving the productivity of the land,
the Land-Grant system helped make this great shift of
population feasible. Now it is the city, more than the
country, which suffers from neglect and which needs our
assistance.
Such problems as urban renewal, environmental planning, race relations, crime, juvenile delinquency, urban health, elementary and secondary cducation
and dozens of others cry for attention, just as the prob]ems of the countryside cried for it 100 years ago.
\Vhat was that motivation? For one thing, there was
the desire to e.,'{tend the benefits of higher education to
the many who were denied it either for financial reasons
or because our institutions of higher learning, as then constituted, were unable to provide the kind of education that
was most needed. There was a feeling that the time had
come for a revolutionary change in the educational approach, with emphasis not only on classica] learning but
on the practical things so important to the development of
the land and the winning of the frontier.
Conditions today are, indeed, totally different; but who
can say that the motivation we have mentioned is no
longer valid? A century ago, our interests and responsibilities were overwhelmingly domestic. Today they are
worldwide. Move up the Land-Grant Act into its 1962
setting and it shines as a beacon of hope and encouragement for a large part of the underdeveloped world.
Why is it that the l\Iorrill Act is better known among
educated men in some foreign countries than in our own
]and? The answer is that many of these countries are in
roughly the same stage of development as was the United
States when the :Morrill Act was enacted. Their people
see in the Land-Grant idea something worthy of emulation. Searching our history for the secrets of our
strength, our foreign friends are convinced that the Morrill Act is one of the keys to the American success story.
They see it as an answer to agricultural and educational
bal'kwardness, from which most of them suffer. They see
it as a foundation stone for democracy and material progress, for which most of them yearn. Thus it is no accident
that a majority of foreign students coming to the United
States register in Land-Grant colleges and universities.
I am not saying that our colleges and universities have
not done much in the urban field. I am saying that we
should be doing a great deal more. Just as in Morrill's
time men of learning often felt it beneath their dignity
to work with their hands, so today many of them seem
to have a distaste for involvement in civic matters. We
are incl ined to let official agencies do all the worrying
about such matters. If we would tackle urban problems
with the same dedication and energy as we have put into
the problems of the countryside, who can say what valuable results might not ensue? We have behind us a vast
apparatus for research and a unique and diverse e.,'{perience in public service through such instruments as
extension services, agricultural experiment stations, special research institutes, and service bureaus. It is clearly
our obligation under the Land-Grant philosophy to dedicate these assets to the maximum extent possible to the
public good. There are many fields of public service in
which we could play a more active and influential role,
not only in the city but also in the county and the state.
I am thinking particularly of matters pertaining to research and planning.
The Morrill Act blazed new trails for higher education
in the United States; and let's hope that our Land-Grant
schools of today have not lost the pioneering tradition
they inherited. It is true that the wild west of old has
passed out of the picture, except on television. But there
is no lack of new frontiers, as anybody knows who reads
the speeches out of Washington.
These borderlands of
knowledge lie not only across the seas, in Africa, Asia
and in Latin America; they are to be found also in the
depths of the ocean and in the vastnesses of space. Every
branch of education has its new frontiers which grow
more and more challenging the farther out they are
pushed.
There is much in the Land-Grant idea that is suitable
for export. Can you think of any better way to plant and
nourish the seedlings of democracy in foreign soil than by
encouraging higher education of the type represented by
our Land-Grant institutions? In many countries there are
still to be found universities more concerned with turning
out lawyers and clerks than in producing engineers and
agricu]tural technicians, which are the rea] need. In such
countries, the tradition of an educated elite quarantined
from the illiterate or semi-educated mass still persists.
Obviously, conditions of this kind provide a breeding
ground for despotism and dictatorship.
What a field of
opportunity for the Land-Grant philosophy, with its emphasis on democratic practices I
Yes, we would do well to transplant and nurse along
this philosophy wherever it is wanted. Exchanges of
pcople and ideas between American and foreign institutions of higher learning are one way of doing this. Such
('onta('ts have increased enormously in recent years. I
('an think of no people-to-people program that stands a
better ('hance of producing worthwhile, long-term results.
And here at home, despite the phenomenal record of
the Laml-(;rant movement, we have no reason for com-
105
It is the duty of the Land-Grant universities to keep
at the forefront of these advances. And in many ways we
are doing so, for example through our ever-increasing
emphasis on graduate study, on research and on international contacts. In the process, however, we must never
permit ourselves to forget that a basic principle of the
Morrill Act is to do the greatest educational good for
the greatest number.
Because of the growing pressure of enrollment in our
universities there are those who would reduce the inflow
of students by stiffening requirements and upping tuition
fees. In some cases there may be some measure of justification for such actions. But carried too far, they would
go against the traditions of the Land-Grant System of
Higher Education. It was clearly the purpose of the authors of the Morrill Act that the doors of our LandGrant institutions should be open to all comers capable
of fulfilling basic requirements for a college education.
It has been demonstrated time and again that a brilliant
high school record is not necessarily a guarantee of later
success, or a poor record a guarantee of failure. Not all
our great men, by any means, were in the top 10 per cent
or even the top 50 per cent of their high school graduating class. In this connection one is tempted to quote
Harry Emerson Fosdick, whose remarks on democracy
have been sometimes applied to higher education in the
Land-Grant tradition. Fosdick said:
"Democracy is based on the conviction that there are
extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people."
As a recent Rockefeller Brothers Report pointed out:
"It is now widely recognized that society has given
too little attention to the individual of unusual talent
or potentialities. To make such an assertion is not to
deplore the unprecedented time and money that we have
devoted to the raising of the general level of achievement. It would serve no purpose to replace or neglect
the gifted by neglect of everyone else. Weare all too
prone to such wide swings of the pendulum in our
national life. We must learn to view these matters in
a perspective which will permit us to repair one omission without creating others."
As Dr. Reuben Gustavson recently pointed out in a
discussion of the role of the Land-Grant universities,
"Today we look back with great pride on a century
of giving to every student the opportunity to develop
his mind to the limit of his capacity to learn. This has
been based on a basic democratic principle that to deny
any individual the opportunity to develop his mind to its
full capacity, insofar as he can, is the greatest tyranny
that can be practiced by mankind.
Now the clear
pressure of numbers is forcing the Land-Grant college,
in common with all institutions, to find some way in
which to continue this basic philosophy or to take
the easier way out to limit the opportunity for hig-her
education to a chosen minority. We are disposed to
think of our obligation to train leaders for a democracy,
perhaps forgetting that it is equally important to educate followers who are wise enough to choose between
different leaders. Perhaps we should ask ourselves
whether the tragedy of Germany was in its violent and
inhuman leadership or in the followers who made this
leadership possible. Perhaps we should also remember
that a stratified society is an unstable society."
Finally, I conclude with a commonplace observation.
The task of the Land-Grant universities and colleges and
of the Association is and always will be unfinished business. I can emphasize this in no better way than to repeat the opening sentence in the statement of "Challenge
of Change" by the Centennial Theme Committee of the
American Association of State Universities and LandGrant Colleges, of which J. L. Morrill was chairman:
"As one hundred years ago, so today the nation's needs
and the world's are new and different, critical and urgent,
immediate and long-range."
Continuing, the Rockefeller Report emphasizes that
"excellence" embraces many kinds of achievements at
many levels, and that in addition to native capacity it includes motivation and character.
More important, perhaps, is the caution so vigorously urged in the Report to
the effect that "Judgments of difference in talents are
not judgments of differences in human worth."
The responsibility begun one hundred years ago continues and, as John Vaizey recently said in his book, The
Ecollomics of Education, "In short, an education system
should be continually reassessed to see that it is teaching relevantly and effectively; since one of its major tasks
is the maintenance of tradition there is little danger that
this will be done too frequently."
Fosdick is in no sense saying that the greatest opportunity and the maximum encouragement should not be
given to the development of the talents of the superior
student.
MILITARY
ENTOMOLOGY
The Armed Forces Pest Control Board will present a
training course on Military Entomology at the Naval
Medical School, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, from July 28 to August 10, 1963.
This course was first presented in 1958. It has the following main objectives:
military services should be submitted through the appropriate Reserve headquarters or military technical service.
A limited number of spaces are available for other qualified personnel and requests will be considered according
to priority of receipt. Inquiries should be addressed to
The Executive Secretary, Armed Forces Pest Control
Board, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Forest Glen
Section, Washington 12, D. C.
1. To provide advanced training for active duty, Reserve and civilian entomologists of the three military
services.
FUNGICIDE.
2. To make known to individuals from universities and
other civilian organizations the contributions which the
military services have made and are making to the science
of entomology and the control of pests and vectors.
3. To indicate the nature of the entomological problems
which confront the Armed Forces and to stimulate scientific research in basic and applied problems which require
attention.
NEMATOCIDE
TESTS
FUllgicide - Nematocide Tests, Results of 1962, Volume
18, is now available. This report is issued armually by
the American Phytopathological
Society Committee on
New Fungicide and Nematocide Data. This report serves
as a medium for organizing and presenting the summarized results of current fungicide and nematocide testing projects. Much of the information is never otherwise published or made conveniently available. Information on products available for testing, composition of
products and their sources are given.
Copies of this report are available at $1.00 per copy
when accompanied by a remittance, $1.25 when invoiced
and billed. Address orders to F. H. Lewis, Pennsylvania
State University Fruit Research Laboratory, Arendtsville,
Pennsylvania. ~Jake remittances payable to the American
Phytopathological
Society. A few copies dating back
through 1927 are also available at the above prices.
4. To foster a continuing appreciation of Military Entomology on the part of universities and other civilian
organization.
The course is designed for professional personnel and
it is expected that those in attendance will include active
duty and Reserve officers of the Army, Navy and Air
Force and civilian employees of the military services and
other governmental agencies. Applications from Reserve
and active duty officers and civilian employees of the
106