SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 107 



this movement, which was primarily a movement of the people 

 or rather of the leaders of the people, found parallel embodiment 

 in both state and national legislation. At first both the states 

 and the nation moved but slowly and tentatively. But within 

 a few years large beginnings had been made. In this, as in other 

 public interests, within the broad limitations of the national 

 constitution, working adjustments of state and national agencies 

 to each other have been made from time to time, in view of 

 practical needs rather than of academic theories. 



The great, epoch-making act of this whole movement was 

 undoubtedly the Morrill Act, which finally reached its passage 

 when civil war had lent new power to the spirit of nationality in 

 the national legislature. In signing this act, on July 2, 1862, 

 Abraham Lincoln, that "new birth of our new soil," that sur- 

 veyor of western lands, who was to drive the labor of slaves from 

 our American fields, now joined his work with that of Washing- 

 ton, to make our American tillage the doing of men made free 

 by knowledge and enlightened skill. 



By the Morrill Act of 1862 the national government gave aid 

 to the states, in the way of liberal grants of lands; it encouraged 

 the states to do in their own several ways the work of higher 

 education in the domain of agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

 While technical studies were brought to the front in this act, it 

 refused to draw a line of opposition between those technical 

 subjects and the training which makes for liberal culture. And 

 both technical and liberal training were joined with preparation 

 for the defense of the nation's life. 



Other important acts soon followed: That establishing a 

 national department of agriculture, in 1862, which department 

 was raised to cabinet rank in 1889; and that establishing a 

 department of education in 1867, which department was re- 

 duced to the rank of a bureau in 1869. In their different ways, 

 these two government offices have both had to do with the 

 administration of the later acts for agricultural education; and 



