Michigan Agricultural College: The Evolution of a Land-Grant Philosophy, 1855-1925 by Keith R. Widder

Abstract

148 Michigan Historical Review Keith R. Widder. Michigan Agricultural College: The Evolution of a Land Grant Philosophy, 1855-1925. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2005. Pp. 547. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Cloth, $39.95. Big-Ten behemoth Michigan State University (MSU) began as a gleam in agricultural reformers' eyes. The 1850 state constitution instructed the legislature to "as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of an agricultural school" (p. x). Although many farmers saw litde virtue in the proposal and the University of Michigan and its first president, Henry Tappan, vigorously opposed it, soon buildings rose in swampy woodlands outside Lansing. Several names adorned the institution in its first seventy years: "Michigan Agricultural College" (MAC) is the most useful. The book ends with the adoption of the familiar "Michigan State" in 1925. MAC straddled the line between those rejecting practical education and those desiring it, continually trying to synthesize the two emphases. An experimental farm and academic education coexisted from the beginning. Early students who helped clear the wooded land for the campus and establish the experimental farm also read Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, and Stowe. A proposal to replace the four-year mixed curriculum with a purely agricultural two-year version met with fierce student resistance. MAC was an escape route for young people seeking an affordable way out of agricultural drudgery. MAC was one of a handful of agricultural schools that predated the Morrill Land Grant Act (1862), which distributed federal land for states to sell to endow colleges of agriculture and "mechanics" (i.e., engineering). MAC's head start did not absolve it of guilt in farmers' eyes when it failed to produce people like themselves, and few graduates returned to the soil. By 1925 only four hundred (about 17 percent) of twenty-three hundred MAC students enrolled in the agricultural course, and even they were more likely to become county extension agents than farmers. Indeed, most alumni opted for professional work related to agriculture, as landscape architects, horticulturalists, teachers of agriculture, and managers of agricultural businesses and cooperatives. The other side of "A&M" was treated as an unfortunate legacy of the Morrill Act. MAC delayed creating an engineering program until 1885 and then treated it as a stepchild. Feeling against "mechanics" ran so high that 1913 legislation briefly forbade sufficient financing for the program's survival. The women's course, begun in 1896, also faced the dilemma of satisfying those citizens who expected MAC to benefit farm life direcdy even as most faculty and students preferred a more theoretical training Book Reviews 149 that opened other options. The rise of domestic science, which promised tomodernize homemaking and provide careers, offered a viable solution. After World War I, new programs in applied science and liberal arts offered nonagricultural alternatives for undergraduates. The creation of seven Ph.D. programs began the college's eventual transition into a research university. Federal funding helped MAC gain public credibility. The Hatch (1887) and Smith (1906) Acts promoted the land-grant colleges' experimental farms. MAC's Cooperative Extension Service, created in 1914 and reinforced by the federal Smith-Hughes Act in 1917, finally found effective ways to bring MAC's services to the rural public. MAC's radio station carried agricultural advice and news as well as sports and music to the people of Michigan, and its growing body of alumni spread the land-grant message. The first four chapters of Michigan Agricultural College, which I have thus far summarized, form an extended essay on the land-grant philosophy and the dilemmas of balancing academic and "useful" knowledge. The final six chapters turn to more specialized topics: the alumni, African-American students, foreign students, athletics, and the impact ofWorld War I on the college. These chapters may be of interest primarily to alumni. MAC's small size and lack of dormitories initially limited the extra-curriculum. But after the turn of the century a panoply of athletics, drama, music, social dances, religious groups, and student societies brought MAC students into the emerging national student culture and fostered alumni loyalty. MAC's Big-Ten athletic future was not evident early.Women played MAC's first interscholastic basketball game, and the men's football team...