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the Second American Revolution. In 1862, the year in which the
Homestead Act became a law, Congress also passed the Morrill Act,
which provided for the wholesale disposal of certain western lands for
the benefit of education. The leading objects were stated to 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 mechanicarts. " Under this act each
Senator and Representative was entitled to 30,000 acres, the land
scrip representing the grant to be sold for the benefit of colleges
within the states.
Within a decade nearly every state in the Union had founded a state
college, or expanded an existing one, with funds so provided. About
half of these institutions inaugurated technical departments or
combined instruction in agriculture with mechanics. Conspicuous among
them were Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and
California. Provisions for a course in Engineering were written into
the charter of the University of Michigan in 1837; the first professor
of engineering was appointed in 1853; and the first degrees in
engineering granted in 1860.
Five institutions were founded at about the same time as the Worcester
Institute, each of which became a leading college of engineering. The
earliest of these to be incorporated was the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. It was founded on a plan devised by Prof. William
B. Rogers and was granted a charter on April 10, 1861. The
organization was maintained during the war, and instruction began in
rented rooms at Boston in 1865. Three purposes were named in the plan:
to maintain a society of arts, a museum of arts, and a school of
industrial science. The Institute was the recipient of many gifts, and
shared with the Massachusetts Agricultural College the benefits of
land grants under the Morrill Act.
Cornell University was also initiated as a result of the Morrill Act,
but its foundation was accomplished by the combining of the vision of
a great educator, Andrew Dickson White, with the generosity and zeal
of one of New York's
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