ABSTRACT
The Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 created institutions that were known by various names: People's Colleges, Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges, and Industrial Colleges. Historians have depicted the land-grant colleges as a reaction to the elite and aloof classical colleges, and a response to popular demand for expanded opportunity and utility in higher education. As opposed to being an original event that separates pre-modern and modern higher education, the land-grant colleges were an institutional expression of a remarkably innovative Zeitgeist. Daniel Coit Gilman penned his treatise "Our National Schools of Science" to counter the ideas in the Michigan Plan by reasserting the primacy of scientific research in land-grant colleges. Land-grant colleges were introduced, in part, to elevate science and advance America's economic prowess. As farmers faced financial ruin after the banking crash of 1873 and its resulting depression, they joined populist movements and demanded that land-grant colleges improve the profitability of agriculture and keep their sons from leaving the farm.
