370 HIGHER AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



the sciences and arts bearing upon agriculture and mechanic 

 arts. The measure had met with violent opposition from &quot;op 

 timists, pessimists, sham economists, hold-backs and do-noth 

 ings.&quot; Buchanan had killed it once with a veto, but at last our 

 statesmen carried it through, and Merrill s bill, with Abraham 

 Lincoln s signature, became one of the significant facts of our 

 national history. 



Colleges crowded forward to avail themselves of the grant. 

 Denominational schools of all stripes and colors insisted upon 

 dividing and sharing in its benefits. Twenty different institutions 

 presented their claims to it in the New York Legislature alone. 

 There was great danger that the benefits of the grant would be 

 lost between the army of speculators in public lands and the 

 army of obstructionists to the educational ideas it embodied, a 

 danger not yet averted. Reckless waste and gross violation of 

 public trust, had in many States attended the administration of 

 the seminary lands. It was feared that this would prove true 

 of the Agricultural College grant also. In every Western State 

 a handful of men stood between these two fires, under every 

 conceivable form of secret opposition and open hostility, to hold 

 this precious legacy inviolate; and that they have so far suc 

 ceeded is due to the fact that they appealed directly to the 

 common sense of the people. 



The first section of the Act of Congress (approved July 22, 

 1862) donating public lands to the several States and Terri 

 tories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture 

 and the mechanic arts,&quot; provides that a quantity of land equal 

 to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative of the State 

 in Congress be given for the purpose named. Section two pre 

 scribes how the land shall be apportioned, located and sold. 

 Section three, that all ef penses should be paid by the States to 

 which the lands belong. Section four provides : 



That all moneys derived from the sale of the lands aforesaid by 

 the States to which the lands are apportioned, and from the sales of 

 land scrip hereinbefore provided for, shall be invested in stocks of 

 the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks, yield 

 ing not less than five per centum upon the par value of said stocks; 

 and that the money so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, 

 the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so 

 far as may be provided in Section five of this Act), and the interest 

 of which shall be inviolably appropriated, by each State which may 

 take and claim the benefit of this Act, to the endowment, support 

 and maintenance of at least one College, where the leading object 



