Study On The Development Of American Land-grant Colleges

In 1862, Morrill Act was enacted and put into practice by the American government, which required the federal government to grant land to each state to set up A&M colleges which were called land-grant colleges. In the history of the development of land-grant colleges, a series of related acts were enacted which played an important role for the fast development of land-grant colleges. The whole history of the development of land-grant colleges, by analyzing a number of data, is divided, into four phases, i.e. germination, establishment, increasingly perfect functions of land-grant colleges and new phase of the development after World War II. This article mainly contains five parts.The establishment of land-grant colleges originated from the traditions of the Great Britain's donating land to support education. By discussing the enactment of the 1785 Land Ordinance and the 1787 Northwest Ordinance and the donation of land before the wars between the states, Part One puts emphasis on the bases of law and practice in the establishment of land-grant colleges.Part Two mainly discusses four facets: the background of the establishment of land-grant colleges; the contribution of Morrill and Turner to the establishment of land-grant colleges; the main contents and significance of Morrill Act of 1862 and the tough problems the 1862 land-grant colleges were faced with.Part Three, besides discussing the enactment of 1890 Morrill Act, mostly deals with how functions of land-grant colleges were made to perfect. The 1887 Hatch Act gave financial aid to set up agricultural experiment stations to strengthen the function of research of land-grant colleges. In addition, the 1914 Smith-Lever Act appropriated a large sum of money for setting up agricultural extension stations, which could strengthen the extension of agricultural technology and services.Part Four discourses upon the development of land-grant colleges from World War II to 1990s. In a majority of land-grant colleges, institutes and courses were regulated after World War II, meanwhile the number of students and land-grant colleges was also increased. Between 1960s and 1970s, the Land-grant status for the institutions for Citizens of American Territories was approved in the District of Columbia and Pacific and Caribbean Islands. In 1994, the 29 institutions for Native Americans obtained the Land-grant status in 12 states.The last part expatiates upon the influence of land-grant colleges on American higher education, which contains three ways: (1) American higher education was made to alter contents of curricula and methods of teaching. (2) The functions of social services of higher education eventually gained establishment and consolidation. (3) The number of American institutes and universities was made to raise increasingly, at the same time, educational structures also became more and more diverse.