Remembering Justin Morrill | Taking Note

Remembering Justin Morrill | Taking Note:

Remembering Justin Morrill

by JOHN MERROW on 02. AUG, 2012 in 2012 BLOGS

 Does the name Justin Smith Morrill ring a bell? Perhaps not, although I am sure you know about theMorrill Act, which President Lincoln signed into law 150 years ago. That legislation created the nation’s land grant universities and remains one of the most significant pieces of federal education legislation in our history. (That short list also includes the G.I. Bill, the National Defense Education Act, theElementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Pell Grant legislation.)

U.S. Representative Morrill, who never attended college, actually pushed the legislation through Congress in 1858, but President Buchanan vetoed it in 1859. Lincoln had a better grasp of the future and signed it into law in on July 2, 1862.

Mr. Morrill, responding to the power of the industrial revolution, was convinced that America’s future depended upon education — but not just the classical liberal arts curriculum offered in most colleges and universities. His legislation called for education to be ‘accessible to all,’ especially to working men, and