ROOT & BRANCH:
LIKE
AN AGED AUNT at an elegant reception, the West Experiment Station
looks quaint and a little incongruous on the 1999 UMass campus,
an oddly dressed visitor from another time. Nestled between the
uncompromising concrete monoliths of the Campus Center to the
south and the Graduate Research Center to the north, the diminutive
building with the dark red-brick walls is a relic of the earthy
materials of the nineteenth century. Its conical turret recalls
a moment when even scientists could afford to be whimsical in
public. An outdated wooden sign over its porte-cochere promises
a service now offered elsewhere: MASS. FEED FERTILIZER / SEED
CONTROL SERVICE .
Don't be deceived, however: the modest scale and unmodish demeanor of the old station belie its historic importance. This aging aunt once stood astride the ramparts of a revolution. The West Experiment Station is an outward and visible sign of a moment when the land-grant idea was coming into its own.
THIS SMALL
BRICK BUILDING was constructed in 1886 to house the sci entific
agricultural studies of such notable local figures
as horticulturist William Clark, agriculturist Levi Stockbridge,
and chemist Charles Goessmann, early faculty of the newly-established
Massachusetts Agricultural College. Those studies were supported
by state funds. The following year, an act of Congress allocated
federal funds for such projects. The Hatch Act of 1887 was the
second pillar of the tripartite structure we now know as the
land-grant institution. The first pillar had been the Morrill
Act of 1862, which articulated the concept of public colleges
while giving federal land to establish them. The second pillar,
the Hatch Act, provided funds for agricultural research; the
third would be the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which funded the
work of cooperative extension. The completed edifice came to
embody the triple mission of teaching, research, and outreach.
The Morrill Act advanced a radical idea: Give federal land to the states, Vermont Senator Justin Morrill argued, so that they can found their own public colleges, and let these colleges serve the common good by training up farmers and mechanics people we'd now call engineers as the architects of progress.
There were good reasons to advance this very American proposal at this particular point in our history. By the mid-nineteenth century, the country had spread out in all directions. There were more mouths to feed, more roads and railways and machines to build, more territory to defend from whoever might threaten it. The centuries-old European tradition, the one on which Harvard and other elite schools had been founded, was all very well for those who wished, or could afford, to enter the traditional professions of the church, medicine, or the law. But this fast-changing world required new kinds of education.
After all, nearly a century had passed since the U.S. had launched its military and political revolution to shake free of Britain. Now there were social and economic revolutions afoot as well. European immigrants had settled new communities all the way to the West Coast. Railroads were criss-crossing the continent, and tensions between the agarian South and the industrial North had exploded into war.
Learning Greek and Latin the curriculum of colleges and universities on the British model could certainly do ordinary folks no harm, and might even enrich their lives, reasoned the proponents of the land-grant idea; but advancing new, practical knowledge that would feed, clothe, and transport the people that was clearly the work of a higher education for the growing republic.
Not everyone embraced this vision, which had been advanced and rejected in various forms for several decades. Indeed, the ideas that eventually formed the land-grant university had been around as long as the nation itself. George Washington had called for establishing agricultural experiment stations. Thomas Jefferson had promoted the application of science to farming and the household arts. And in the 1850s, a Massachusetts-born professor named Jonathan Baldwin Turner had formulated a plan for a national grant of land for education that some referred to as the "common man's education Bill of Rights."
Even so, an 1862 editorial in North-ampton's Hampshire Gazette objected to the tax burden that a land-grant college would create, and asserted that high school was enough education for ordinary people. An earlier Morrill bill had been vetoed by President Buchanan on the grounds that it interfered with states' rights. But Congress passed the legislation in 1862, and President Lincoln signed it despite the fact that the country was deep in the Civil War. In 1863, a year after the passage of the act, the influential New England Farmer magazine remained unconvinced. The whole proposal of higher education for farmers, it said, would become "an apple of discord among learned professors and influential politicians, and an object of merriment to the practical farmer." Some scornfully dismissed the whole enterprise as "book farming."
Despite ongoing opposition to the new institutions, there was considerable enthusiasm as well, and in Amherst, land was acquired for a Massachusetts Agricultural College. Uniquely among the states, Massachusetts split the agriculture and "mechanic arts" sections of its land-grant appropriation between the new campus in Amherst and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.When the M.A.C. opened its doors in October 1867, it had four professors, fifty-seven students, and a curriculum that included agriculture and horticulture, mathematics and civil engineering, chemistry, botany, and zoology, along with less obviously practical courses in English grammar, rhetoric, and literature, plus twenty weeks each of French and German. By the time the first class graduated the faculty had expanded to ten, and lectures on human anatomy, physiology, and hygiene had been added to the curriculum. Students were required to perform six hours a week of farm labor, most of it, at first, unskilled: clearing old orchards, digging drainage ditches. In addition, a military program was installed, resulting in a battalion of infantry that passed in review at important campus celebrations.
BY 1879, FORTY-THREE
NEW land-grant institutions had been founded across the country
more than half of the sixty-nine in existence today. Some were
brand-new, like the one in Amherst. Some, such as Georgia's and
Wisconsin's, grew out of existing state universities. Others
grew out of private institutions, such as MIT.
On June 21, 1887, Vermont Senator Justin Morrill delivered an address at "Mass Aggie" in which he eloquently articulated the principles of the young institution. The land-grant colleges, said Morrill, were "founded on the idea that a higher and broader education should be placed in every state within the reach of those whose destiny assigns them to, or who may have the courage to choose, industrial vocations where the wealth of nations is produced; where advanced civilization unfolds its comforts, and where a much larger number of the people need wider educational advantages and impatiently await their possession."
The purpose, the senator said, "was to open the door to a liberal education for this large class at a cheaper cost," and to offer "not only sound literary instruction, but something more applicable to the productive employments of life." Perhaps surprisingly, Morrill also quoted the poet John Milton to the effect that "a complete education" is one that "fits a man to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war."
Glancing over his shoulder at Harvard and the other "literary colleges," Morrill suggested that the two types of institution could happily coexist: "There is room for all. Thorough culture is contagious. One educated young man creates an educational epidemic in a whole neighborhood."
That educational epidemic has not yet abated, and if all goes well, it never will. UMass Chancellor David Scott, an enthusiastic advocate of the university's founding idea, envisions yet another radical turn in the educational stair, as the land-grant idea is turned to the needs of an information age and a heterogeneous society. Morrill is not the last person to use high rhetoric in favor of the idea of educating the "common man," however that person might be defined: Scott believes that the model for land-grant education in the twenty-first century is "the integrative university for an integrative age." He speaks of "interdisciplinary synergy." He is excited about the prospect of "extending education vertically" to make it available throughout a student's lifetime, as well as horizontally, to help connect all areas of knowledge. "The challenge," he says, "is to find what we need for a liberal no, a liberating education in an integrative age."
THE BEAUTY
OF THE ORIGINAL legislation, says Scott,
is that, like the U.S. Constitution, it has room built in for
expansion. In the language of the Morrill Act, the "leading
object" was to be, "without excluding other scientific
and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach
such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the
mechanic arts . . . in order to promote the liberal and practical
education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and
professions in life." (By comparison, the founding language
of Amherst College, forty-six years earlier, envisioned "the
Classical Education of Indigent Young Men of Piety and Talents,
for the Christian Ministry.")
Now listen to another leader on Amherst's land-grant campus. Kenyon Butterfield, president of MAC from 1906 to 1914, was also a pioneer in the national effort to expand rural education. Speaking in support of the Smith-Lever bill, which established the cooperative extension system in 1914, he argued that "Absolutely the only way we can expect or hope to conserve the soil fertility of this country is to conserve the intelligence of the great masses of people who till the soil."
THE LAND-GRANT
institution came to maturity by combining
its original teaching function with advanced scientific research
located in the experiment stations. Knowledge developed under
the aegis of the university was disseminated in its most useful
forms through county extension agents and 4-H groups. During
the 1960s, the research arm expanded within academic departments
and the experiment station became "virtual reality."
Dairy operations, once barns full of cows giving milk, now include
laboratories where calves may be cloned. As UMass experiment
station director Mark Mount puts it, "Agriculture is no
longer the same as farming."
One of those on campus who lives most closely, day by day, with the land-grant idea is John Gerber, head of UMass Extension. Gerber, who presided over the painful scaling down of extension between 1988 and 1992, is, nevertheless, a hopeful man. Because of the chancellor's support of the land-grant ideal, the events that didn't kill Gerber and UMass Extension appear to have made both of them strong. The loss of state funding in those years from $5.2 million to less than $1 million resulted in personnel cuts of over 160 people, says Gerber. It was a painful time, but "we're now out of crisis mode," he says. Programs have been reorganized and Chancellor Scott has made "a tremendous investment," says Gerber, both in direct appropriations and in faculty time from the College of Food and Natural Resources.
Faculty affiliated with UMass Extension may be entomologists working with greenhouse owners to control pests; plant pathologists working with cranberry- growers to find environmentally sound ways of addressing weed problems; planners working to help communities protect their water supplies. Contrary to some expectations, says Gerber, faculty who work with extension and the general public find considerable satisfaction outside the classroom and laboratory. "There's a rebirth of engagement. They find they can work in the world and be valued there too. They get remotivated."
THE COLLEGE
OF Arts and Humanities, repository of much of the learning of
the traditional European-style university literature, the classics,
the arts may be the last place you'd expect to find enthusiasm
for the agrarian land-grant ideal. Yet Lee Edwards, dean of that
college, speaks with unequivocal conviction about spreading the
word. It's an "unanticipated connection," she agrees,
but in fact "we're out in the community with all four feet."
She points to various forms of outreach sponsored by her college:
the Translation Center taking foreign language expertise into
the courts and the business community; scholar Gary Matthews
doing philosophy with elementary school children; theater professor
Miguel Romero putting on plays with kids in Springfield; David
Glassberg's public-history program helping communities examine
their pasts.
Justin Morrill's "educational epidemic" the expansion of higher education among a broader spectrum of people has succeeded, say these campus leaders, beyond anyone's expectations. The great adventure of the American land-grant, says Edwards, is that it makes excellence available to those once excluded by class, money, color and gender. And the radical idea that education should be of practical use to society has totally transformed higher education in this country and beyond. Modern universities have far less to do with the cloistered curriculum of mid-nineteenth century Harvard than with the democratic vision pioneered in the land-grant institutions.
"Some people are embarrassed by our agricultural roots,"says John Gerber. "But rural society was where the poor people were in the mid-nineteenth century. The land-grant idea was about helping people help themselves. It's a grand idea, something to be proud of."
MERLE HOWES
ASKS A VISITOR a deceptively simple ques-
tion. It sounds a little like: What was the color of George Washington's
white horse? The question is: Where is the land that was granted
for the Massachusetts Agricultural College? The visitor, like
most unwary respondents, answers: Here, in Amherst. No, says
Howes, launching into his corrective explanation with more than
a little relish. That land was all in the underpopulated western
territories.
When the government granted land under the provisions of the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, explains Howe, it was not land for campuses, but land as a revenue source. The states were allotted acres to sell where the government owned them which was not in New England in the 1860s and the proceeds built the campuses back home.
Howes is an emeritus professor of public administration in the Department of Consumer Studies, earlier known as home economics. He began at the university in 1956 as assistant director of the cooperative extension program, working with 4-H clubs. (Well before that, he was "a farm boy in Maryland, a 4-H kid.") His interest in the subject of the land-grant goes way back. He studied agricultural education at Kansas State University, which is a land-grant school. He got his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, likewise a land-grant school, then came to teach at UMass, yet another land-grant.
Somewhere along the line, he found himself wondering about the land in all these land-grants. Initial inquiries revealed that there is in fact very little written about the process by which the federal government raised money for the states to found new colleges. A friend told him he'd never locate the land-grant land.
But there must be records, thought Howes. After he retired in 1987, he started his search for them, with the idea of eventually writing a book on the subject. A call to the U.S. Department of Interior took him to the Bureau of Land Management and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and from there, west to land offices in Nebraska and Kansas, where most of the land for the new Massachusetts college turned out to be located.
The Morrill Act was a "beautifully written piece of legislation," says Howes. The land was granted to the states to sell to generate income. To discourage speculation, a three-year limit later extended was placed on founding the colleges. Thirty thousand acres was granted per federal congressional seat; states without federal land got scrip, pieces of paper worth 160 acres each. Massachusetts got 2,250 pieces of paper representing a total of 360,000 acres.
Justin Morrill, senator from Vermont, was the perfect sponsor for the land-grant legislation, says Howes, because he himself was not involved in land speculation of any kind. He was "clean, new, he had no baggage." A century and a half later, Morrill might not recognize the campus his legislation founded in Amherst. But the principle under which it was founded still holds true, says Merle Howes. It is, he says, that in this university, the public interest must be served, because public wealth created it.
- MP
NANCY GARRABRANTS
PRACTICES what she preaches, puts
her money where her mouth is, her flowers where her office is.
A teacher and advocate of floriculture as well as a passionate
gardener and floral entrepreneur, she had promised herself that
when she took over the directorship of the Stockbridge School
of Agriculture, there would always be flowers in her office.
Today, just a week after graduation, that high-ceilinged room
in Stockbridge Hall is full of blooms among them an enormous
vase of crimson roses and a pot overflowing with purple verbena
and fire-engine-red geraniums.
The veteran of seventeen years in the plant and soil sciences department, Garrabrants finished her first year as Stockbridge director this summer, and is raring to spread the word about the many strengths of the two-year program. Not enough people know how much it does to prepare students for the world of work, she says, or of its extraordinary 100 percent placement rate. She herself is an unambiguous booster: "Stockbridge needs to put itself more in the limelight."
The new director spent part of her first year traveling to conferences on topics representing the school's major subjects: arboriculture and park management; landscape contracting; turfgrass management; and horticulture, comprising greenhouse/floriculture, the care of woody plant materials, and retail floral design. She loves meeting people, "beating the drum" for her school. "I want to reconnect with alums," she says, "and improve links with professional associations and the various industries we serve. People in the industries like knowing there's someone they can contact here."
Garrabrants is not only connecting with people outside the program, she's hoping to cultivate what she describes as a "community of the teaching staff." This is not a simple task. Faculty at the Stockbridge School come from all over the university, and so they define their allegiences primarily to their departments: entomology, forestry and wildlife management, plant and soil sciences, among others. Garrabrants plans a luncheon this fall to discuss common issues related to teaching students in a two-year program. She hopes to enlist faculty loyalty the way a department does: by identifying shared concerns and by offering Stockbrige-based incentives, such as education and travel.
Founded in its present form as a "Two-Year Course in Practical Agriculture" in 1928, Stockbridge represents the teaching and outreach branches of the land-grant tradition. The third branch, research, happens elsewhere, within the university's academic departments. Stockbridge reaps the harvest of that research in its classrooms, but the two-year program's goals stay in the here-and-now: practical learning that leads to jobs. Nancy Garrabrants is justly proud of the Stockbridge record on this score, and notes that over 100 companies attended a Stockbridge job fair in February. There is such a shortage of trained professionals in these fields, she says, that many of these employers were trying to recruit from each other.
In its seventy-year history, the school has changed its focus from "production agriculture" raising food to what is called "the green industry" installing lawns and playing fields and golf courses, producing plants for landscaping, caring for those landscapes. In making curricular changes, says Garrabrants, the school has simply followed the historic changes in how we produce food in this country. Because of the rise of large agribusiness, most of it in the West, Midwest, and South, New England is no longer a center of food production. Stockbridge maintains a strong fruit and vegetable program, but there is a new focus on managing plant material in more urban environments. In addition, there is no longer an emphasis on traditional animal husbandry. The equine industries program, for example, now serves the needs of the pleasure-horse business.
In recognition of a new competitiveness in the green industry, changes have been instituted in the training internships that all students take part in. There's now "more of a ladder to climb" in the field, says Garrabrants, and the internships have been shortened from five to three months, bringing students back to the classroom afterwards to consolidate the knowledge they've gained in the field.
Not everyone applauded that decision, acknowledges Garrabrants. But as a new broom, she is determined to sweep clean, and as a gardener, she knows pruning is as important as planting.
- MP
