Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 186]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

156

History University of Illinois

CHAPTER VII SEMINARY AND COLLEGE FUNDS AND VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OR STATE UNIVERSITY IN ILLINOIS Federal land grants for the purpose of higher education have come to be considered an integral part of the national policy. A study of the motives prompting these grants reveals the unflattering truth that, contrary to the general belief, federal aid to higher education was not the result of the beneficent foresight of our first congressmen, but was, in fact, the outcome of a rather clever bargain between a private land company and an unwilling congress, forced to yield to its purchasers' demands through sheer necessity. In other words, the precedents for land grants by the federal government for higher educational purposes had their origin in the land sales of 1787.* This subject of public land disposal was closely connected with questions of government with which the congress was then [ struggling. The temporary government for the northwest territory which had been provided in 1784 had proved inadequate in many ways, and therefore in 1786 plans for a new and permanent arrangement were brought before congress. Discussion on the bill lagged for the reason that the enthusiasm of congress had been lessened somewhat by the inactivity of land sales and the consequent effect on immigration. The question, however, took on new force and significance when a memorial was presented to congress from a number of influential New England men connected with the Ohio land company. The originators of this organization were Generals Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper both of whom had been interested for some time in the questions of

*Treat, The National Land System, 265-270 and Knight, Land Grant for Education in the Northwest Territory uphold this view. See also American Historical Association, Papers, vol. 1, No. 3, p. 17, 18.