Today, universities continue to honor the legacy and the historical significance of the Morrill Act nearly years later during a Penn State land-grant conference.
Scholars from across the country gathered to dissect the history of land-grants and look to the future during a time of economic uncertainty. Skip to main content. Although industry and commerce were gaining in importance, almost two-thirds of the American population in were still engaged in agricultural pursuits.
A few desultory attempts had been made in the early s to found schools devoted exclusively to the study of scientific agriculture or to include scientific agriculture in the course of studies at established institutions. However, it was not until the early s that any substantive progress was made. By that time, agricultural societies dedicated to the economic improvement of the farmer through application of scientific knowledge had been established in a number of northern and midwestern states.
In several states-including Pennsylvania-one of the chief alms of the societies was the creation of a collegiate institution for the instruction and dissemination of information of value to farmers. In Pennsylvania, agitation for a statewide organization dedicated to scientific agriculture resulted in the formation of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society in Harrisburg on January 21, Several hundred delegates from 55 counties attended.
The moving force behind the new group was the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, one of the earliest groups in America dedicated to the application of science to agriculture, founded in Frederick 0. Watts , a member of the Philadelphia society, was elected president of the state society.
Like most of his fellow delegates, Watts could be most fittingly described as a gentleman farmer. An attorney, Watts practiced law in his native Cumberland County, had served a term as a common pleas judge, and maintained interests in railroads and other business enterprises.
But it was agriculture that attracted Watts' most frequent and prolonged attention. At his Carlisle farm, he carried on a series of crop and soil experiments.
Frederick Watts. For twenty years, Watts had campaigned for the adoption of more scientific agricultural methods, and he was a vocal proponent of the establishment of an agricultural school where these methods could be studied. Watts resolved to make the founding of such an institution the state agricultural society's principal objective.
At the society's second annual meeting in January , he recommended that a special convention be held in March at Harrisburg to adopt a course of action with regard to the proposed agricultural school.
The proposal won quick approval, with the understanding that the delegates were to be chosen from local agricultural societies and friends of agriculture throughout the state. At the convention, delegates heard a report from a committee chaired by Watts that outlined the basic organization and objectives of the school. It was to have convenient access to agricultural markets but should not be near a large town.
Students should be required to perform manual labor, and their classroom studies should include not only agricultural subjects but a sampling of classical subjects as well. To demonstrate that this institution was truly different from its classical counterparts, the committee suggested that it be given the title of "The Farmers' High School.
But the academic work was to be of collegiate grade, and baccalaureate degrees were to be awarded. The convention endorsed these proposals. Legislative approval was needed in order to have the institution chartered, or incorporated. On March 11, a bill to incorporate The Farmers' High School was introduced into the State Senate but that body was nearing adjournment and did not have the time to consider the measure.
It was reintroduced the following year and passed routinely. Governor William Bigler signed the bill on April 13, The charter specified that control of The Farmers' High School was to be vested in a board of trustees consisting of the presidents of the county agricultural societies and the president and vice president of the state agricultural society, about 60 persons in all.
It also directed the trustees to meet in June to discuss the procurement of a site for the institution. The required quorum of thirteen trustees did not appear for this meeting, however, nor for a second one held the following month.
Any further attempt to establish the school seemed pointless unless the number of trustees was greatly reduced. The General Assembly the state legislature repealed the old act of incorporation and issued a new one providing for only thirteen trustees. Four of them the Governor and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the president of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society, and the principal of The Farmers' High School were to be ex officio members.
The remaining nine were to be elected by a body comprised of the executive committee of the state agricultural society and three representatives from each county society. Governor James Pollock signed the new charter on February 22, , a date that has since been commemorated as the birth date of The Pennsylvania State University.
Obtaining a suitable location for The Farmers' High School was the main item of business at the first meeting of the board of trustees, held June 14, , in Harrisburg.
The board considered proposals from individuals in five counties who were willing to donate or sell or more acres of land for the school. Irvin, a man of considerable substance in his community by virtue of his extensive interest in iron furnaces, forges, and rolling mills, was prepared to give any one of three acre tracts from his large holdings. The trustees postponed making a decision until an inspection of all five locations could be made by a committee consisting of Governor Pollock, Judge Watts, and Dr.
Alfred L. Elwyn, a Harvard-trained physician who preferred tilling the soil to practicing medicine. This committee completed its work during the summer months and the board reconvened on September Irvin's proposition had in the meantime been made more attractive by the pledge of trustees Hugh N. On a motion by Watts, the trustees voted to accept the Centre County offer. The school was to be situated on acres of farm and woodland at the confluence of Nittany and Penn's Valleys, not far from Centre Furnace, an iron-making facility owned by Irvin and his brother-in-law, Moses Thompson.
It was an isolated locale. The nearest town, hardly more than a village, was Boalsburg, which lay four miles east at the foot of Tussey Mountain. The county seat of Bellefonte was twelve miles northeast and could be reached only by the most rudimentary and circuitous of roads. The closest railroad connection was the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line at Spruce Creek, twenty-two miles and a thrice weekly stagecoach ride away. Yet the trustees saw virtue in this isolation. A more picturesque setting for an agricultural institution could not be imagined.
Frederick Watts contended that the location possessed "the most essential advantages of soil surface, exposure, healthfulness and centrality," and there was no disputing the fact that youths forced to live and study in this virtual wilderness were unlikely to be disturbed by the temptations of the big city. The board of trustees next devoted its time to raising money to support the institution. A request was also made for financial assistance from the legislature.
Anticipating a Positive reaction from Harrisburg, the trustees doubled the size of the school's land holdings by purchasing an additional acres from James Irvin. The responsibility of planning the school's physical layout was delegated to Watts, McAllister, and James Miles of Erie.
The committee retained a professional architect to design the main building. It was to be a five-story stone structure composed of three sections or wings and providing rooms for up to students together with faculty living quarters and classrooms. Other contracts were awarded for the erection of a barn, farmhouse, and outbuildings, all to be built according to designs prepared by Watts and McAllister. A local horticulturist, William G. Waring, was hired to lay out the grounds, trees, and shrubs.
The trustees expressed confidence that the money could be collected through statewide subscription. Unfortunately, they had not foreseen the economic recession that descended upon Pennsylvania and the nation later that year.
The subscription drive failed. To compound the school's troubles, Turner and Natcher grossly underestimated the cost of constructing the main building and were on the verge of financial ruin. The farm school may well have been stillborn had it not been for the efforts of Hugh McAllister, who worked feverishly to stave off disaster.
McAllister, Centre County's most distinguished lawyer and owner of a large farm on the outskirts of Bellefonte, had been in the forefront of the drive to establish an agricultural school in Pennsylvania since meeting Frederick Watts at a farmers' convention many years earlier.
As the local trustee, he was expected to oversee construction at the farm school. McAllister could not prevent the bankruptcy of Turner and Natcher, however, and when the board of trustees convened in June , nearly all work on the main building had come to a halt.
The trustees refused to abandon hope. They decided to channel all resources into completing the west wing, or about one-third of the main building. Only the basement of the structure had thus far been finished. Confident that their emergency measures would have the desired effect, the trustees next turned to academic affairs and established admission requirements for the school.
Up to male students were to be admitted, apportioned from each county on the basis of population. All students had to be at least sixteen years of age, of good moral character, and carry the recommendation of their county agricultural societies.
They were to have completed an unspecified amount of elementary education. The school term was to begin in February and run until December, thus allowing students opportunity to study all phases of planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops. When the trustees met again in December , they were sufficiently satisfied with the progress made since the June meeting to set February 16, , as the date for admission of the first class.
On that date, 69 of the students who had been accepted for enrollment arrived at The Farmers' High School. The scene that greeted them was one that hardly inspired confidence. Huge limestone building blocks and piles of boards were strewn about the muddy landscape. The east wing of the main building was little more than a hole in the ground. In the west wing, practically all space not used for instructional purposes was given over to dormitory rooms, forcing students to use a carpenters' shanty in the rear of the building as a dining hall.
The living quarters, illuminated by smoky lard oil lamps and candles, featured the barest of furnishings and did not even include bath or toilet accommodations. Four faculty members were on hand to welcome the new arrivals: William G. Waring , who was appointed professor of horticulture in addition to being retained in his position as superintendent of gardens and nurseries; Jacob S. Whitman, professor of natural science; R. Allison, professor of English language and literature and moral and intellectual philosophy; and Samuel Baird, professor of mathematics.
Waring, as acting principal, was the chief academic officer and administrator pending the arrival of a president. Born in England, Waring had emigrated to the United States in and had spent nearly twenty years as a teacher and principal at various Centre County academies before devoting all his time to growing and experimenting with trees, shrubs, and other plants at his Oak Hall nursery, near the base of Mount Nittany.
The trustees believed he best exemplified the blend of traditional education and scientific agricultural experience that they wished to instill in graduates of The Farmers' High School. According to the first catalog, it was the duty of Waring and his colleagues "to develop a system of instruction which, while it shall be sufficiently thorough to afford a good mental discipline, shall also afford a larger share of practical knowledge peculiarly adapted to the necessities and calling of a farmer.
William G. The trustees' success in beginning classes did little to mitigate the criticism that had focused on the school almost from its inception. Most critics were members of the state agricultural society, since few other persons yet knew about the institution.
Some complained about its geographic inaccessibility. Others, discouraged by the school's financial misfortunes, argued that the trustees ought to discard their grandiose plans for an agricultural college and settle for a small vocational institution that offered only the most elementary and practical kind of instruction for farmers. Judge Watts and his colleagues realized only too well that The Farmers' High School stood on the brink of failure and that only strong leadership and a generous infusion of state funds would save it.
Because the president of the school had to be an individual possessing sympathy for the ideals of utilitarian education at the collegiate level, as well as the ability to inspire his fellow teachers and students, the trustees weighed the candidates for that office with great care. The son of a farmer-blacksmith, Pugh had not been content to follow his father's trade. A year at a manual labor academy in New York and some subsequent teaching experience had instilled within him a passion for additional learning.
In Pugh sailed for Europe, where he attended several universities and familiarized himself with the continent's agricultural schools and academies. Four years later, at England's Rothamstead experiment station, he launched a series of investigations in agricultural chemistry that won international acclaim. But his interest in higher education ranged beyond the confines of agriculture. He saw a need for colleges to offer instruction in a diverse array of practical subjects.
He had already resolved to return to the United States to establish what he termed an 44 industrial college" when he received word that the new Farmers' High School was searching for a president. He applied at once for the post. Although he was named to the presidency in February , Pugh first had to finish his Rothamstead experiments and did not arrive at the school until that snowy day in October.
Evan Pugh. President Pugh realized that he could not think much about the academic aspects of the institution until its physical necessities were satisfied.
It received little support, however; the school was still not yet well known among the legislators. Duncan reintroduced the bill. Local agricultural societies expressed strong support for it this time, as did newly elected Governor Andrew Curtin, himself a Centre County resident. The measure passed. Pugh and the trustees immediately took steps to finish construction of the main building. Because of the shortage of men and materials resulting from the onset of the Civil War-Fort Sumter was fired upon in April the entire structure was not ready for occupancy until December By that time, a large barn, blacksmith and carpenter shops, a granary, and other outbuildings had been erected.
The war presented yet another obstacle to the development of the school. Heeding the counsel of President Pugh, only a small number of students chose to terminate their studies and enlist in the Union army during and Lee invaded Pennsylvania and a mass exodus of both students and professors occurred as Governor Curtin called for men to serve for the duration of the emergency.
Classes were suspended from June until September, by which time Lee had been defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg and had withdrawn to Virginia.
One hundred ninety-six students and faculty bore arms during the Civil War. The Farmers' High School experienced little difficulty in attracting students during the war years Enrollment climbed steadily, reaching in Nearly forty degrees had been awarded by then. The first graduation ceremonies were held in December , when eleven students received the degree of Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture.
They completed the normal four-year course of studies in three years because they and forty-four others who did not complete degree requirements were admitted in with advanced standing, having transferred to the farm school from other colleges.
While student life bore little resemblance to the experiences of later generations of college students, it did not differ markedly from the regimen followed at other institutions of that era. The routine began at A. The remainder of the morning hours were devoted to classroom studies, which were characterized almost exclusively by memorization and recitation.
During the afternoon students fulfilled their manual labor obligations by attending to chores on the farm or around the main building. A second chapel service was held around P. Following the evening meal, students were expected to study in their rooms until the bell rang for "lights out" at P. Literary clubs constituted the only organized form of extracurricular activity, although a sizable portion of the student body preferred to indulge in the more informal pastimes of card games and liquor parties, both of which were forbidden by school regulations.
These rules also prohibited leaving the grounds without permission, yet the attraction of Bellefonte with its easy access to alcoholic beverages often proved an irresistible temptation to some students, particularly on weekends. President Pugh and the faculty refused to condone such conduct, however, and did not hesitate to suspend or expel student offenders.
Discipline was a chronic problem. The Farmers' High School seems to have been a kind of dumping ground for students who had been expelled from other colleges for academic or, more often, disciplinary reasons.
Tellico Johnson, a member of the class of , gave evidence of what was undoubtedly one of the milder forms of offense. The student "told me Professor Wilson used to close them during grace but a rough fellow threw a pat of butter at him, hitting him in the face, and he never said grace after that with his eyes closed. We engage in collaborative activities with private sector, educational, and governmental partners worldwide to generate, integrate, apply, and disseminate knowledge that is valuable to society.
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After the Morrill Act passed in , a site was selected in each state to serve as the land grant institution. It was not until that University President Milton S. Eisenhower officially elevated the school to university status as The Pennsylvania State University. Many of our fellow Big schools are also land-grant universities, including Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin. It would be remiss to ignore the unfortunate realities the Land-Grant Act presented for Native Americans.
The land granted by the federal government was truthfully stolen from Native Americans in the western United States. The funds from the sale were then used to fund the grants within each state at the expense of the Native Americans who lost their homes. However, a second Morrill Act was passed in that established land grant universities specifically for students of color.
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