History of Michigan State University - Agriculture School

Agriculture School

The Michigan Constitution of 1850 called for the creation of an "agricultural school", either as a part of the University of Michigan, or as an autonomous institution. U-M President Henry P. Tappan tried to convince the legislature to build the agriculture school in Ann Arbor, but the secretary of the Michigan State Agricultural Society, John C. Holmes, argued that the young farmers would not get the attention they needed in the established university. Holmes' argument eventually won out and, on February 12, 1855, Michigan Governor Kinsley S. Bingham signed a bill establishing the nation's first agriculture college, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan.

Classes began in May 1857 with three buildings, five faculty members, 63 male students, and a college president, Joseph R. Williams. Williams, a Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa, was a self-made gentleman farmer and prominent Michigan attorney. He was a passionate promoter of higher education for the farming and working classes. In the first year, Williams hired several well-educated faculty members who had studied in prominent east coast schools. In cramped College Hall, these scholars developed well-equipped laboratories with then-rare microscopes and other state-of-the-art scientific equipment. Under Williams, the College offered a unique blend of practical and theoretical academics.

With no prior American agricultural college on which to model itself, the College instead turned to the fledgling American medical school as a guide. In fact, a number of the early faculty members held medical degrees. As such, the school required more scientific study than other undergraduate institutions of the era. The school offered a three-part curriculum that balanced liberal arts, science and practical vocational studies. Somewhat unusual for the day, Williams excluded Latin and Greek studies from the early curriculum. This meant that these classical languages were not admission requirements, a relief for the overwhelming number of rural applicants. The College did require three hours of daily manual labor, which helped students defray expenses and develop the campus infrastructure while students learned scientific principles through their efforts.

Despite these innovations, Williams ran into conflict with the managing State Board of Education. The Board saw the College as being elitist and extravagant, despite Williams' eloquent defense of higher education for the masses. Indeed, many farmers began protesting against the College's curriculum with some even calling for the College's abolition. They saw the Agricultural College's strong scientific curriculum as educating boys away from the farm. So after just two years and under great public pressure, Williams resigned in 1859. The Board then reduced the curriculum to a two-year, vocation-oriented farming program, a move that resulted almost overnight in a drastic reduction in enrollment. The school was soon in dire financial straits and threatened with dissolution.

After resigning from the College, Williams was elected Michigan's lieutenant governor and helped pass the Reorganization Act of 1861. That new law mandated that the College have a four-year curriculum and the power to grant degrees comparable to those of the University of Michigan – that is, master's degrees (and, much later, doctoral degrees). Under the act, a newly created body known as the State Board of Agriculture took over from the State Board of Education in running the institution. At that time, the legislature adopted the more pronounceable name of State Agricultural College.

The school's first class graduated in 1861, but there was no time for an elaborate graduation ceremony. The following year, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to support similar colleges nationally, the first instance of federal funding for education. Williams, whose efforts as lieutenant governor had rescued the school from extinction, never witnessed this landmark occasion to which he had dedicated so much of his life, as he had become ill and died the year prior to the federal enactment.