state university. National
assistance to higher education was given on an immense scale in 1862,
when the Morrill Act was passed providing for the grant of 30,000
acres of land for each representative and senator, to be devoted to
the support in each state of a higher institution of learning, in
which technical and agricultural branches should be taught. Within
twenty years every state in the Union had taken advantage of this
splendid endowment, either to found a new state university which would
comply with the requirements as regards courses of instruction or to
establish an agricultural college as an independent institution, or in
connection with some already existing institution. Not only do some of
the finest state universities like those of California, Illinois, and
Minnesota owe their origins to the Morrill Act, but others owe to it
their real beginnings as institutions of collegiate grade. Up to the
passage of the Morrill Act a dozen state universities struggled to
maintain themselves with meager revenues and few students. They were
trying to do broad academic work, but by no means reached the
standards of the strong colleges in the eastern part of the country.

The establishment of state-supported and state-controlled universities
in the commonwealths organized after the close of the eighteenth
century by no means put an end to the establishment of colleges upon
religious foundations. Denominational zeal was very strong in the
decades preceding the Civil War, and the church was the center of
community life in the newly settled regions. The need to provide an
intelligent ministry and also a higher civilization led to the
establishment of many small sectarian colleges in the new states.
Despite the fact that practically all of them would today be
considered only of secondary grade, they accomplished a splendid work
and provided ideals and standards of intellectual life in a new
country whose population was engaged chiefly in supplying the physical
needs of life. The response made in the Civil War by the institutions
of higher education throughout the United States, whether privately or
publicly supported, was a magnificent return for the sacrifices
endured in their establishment and maintenance. Everywhere throughout
the North the colleges were depleted of instructors and students who
had entered the ranks, and in the South nearly all the colleges were
compelled to close their doors. Upon the shoulders of their g