The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land-Grant College Movement

Abstract

The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education revises traditional interpretation of land-grant college movement, whose institutions were brought into being by 1862 Morrill Act to provide for the liberal and practical education of industrial classes. Rather than being inevitable consequence of unfolding dynamic of institutional and socioeconomic forces, Williams argues, it was active intervention and initiative of a handful of educational leaders that secured colleges' future above all, activities of George W. Atherton.For nearly three decades, Atherton, who was seventh president of Pennsylvania State University, worked to secure consistent federal financial support for colleges, which in their early years received little assistance from states they were designed to benefit. He also helped to develop institutions as comprehensive national universities grounded in liberal arts and sciences a conception that countered prevailing view of colleges as mainly agricultural schools.Atherton became prime mover in campaign to enact 1887 Hatch Act, which encouraged establishment of agricultural experiment stations at land-grant colleges. The act marked federal government's first effort to provide continuous funding to research units associated with higher education institutions. At same times, Atherton played a key role in formation of first association of such institutions: The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. It was Association that provided critical mass needed to lobby Congress successively and to approach many opportunities and threats land-grant colleges faced during 1885 1906 period.Atherton was also deeply involved in campaign for Morrill Act of 1890, which provided long-sought annual appropriations to land-grant colleges for a broad range of academic programs and encouraged steady growth in state support during 1890s.Roger Williams traces motives and tactics behind a series of laws that made federal government irreversibly committed to funding higher education and scientific research and provides rich new insights into complexities, polarities, and inherent contradictions of history of American land-grant movement.