"The land-grant colleges were founded on the ideal that a higher and broader education should be placed in every State within the reach of those whose destiny assigned them to, or may have the courage to choose industrial vocations where the wealth of nations is produced...to open the door to a liberal education for this large class at a cheaper cost from being close at hand and to tempt them by offering not only sound literary instruction but something more applicable to the productive employments of life...such instruction as any person might need--with 'the world before them where to choose'--and without the exclusion of those who might prefer to adhere to the classics."

President Buchanan vetoed the first version of Representative Justin Morrill's (Vermont, 1852-1867, senator 1867-1897) proposed legislation, but on July 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Today, there are 106 land-grant institutions. Land-grant colleges and universities enroll about 3 million students and produce a half a million graduates every year. Land-grant schools spend more than $13 billion each year for teaching, research and public service. During their history, land-grant institutions have awarded 20 million degrees. They award one-third of all U.S. bachelor’s degrees, one-third of all master’s degrees, and 60 percent of all Ph.D.s. They award 70 percent of all engineering degrees.

The Land-Grant College Act of 1862 brought other sweeping changes: The Hatch Act of 1887 creating the agricultural experimentation stations; the Second Morrill Act of 1890, leading to the creation of 17 historically black land-grant colleges; and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which created cooperative extension and, later, our community colleges.

Penn State was the second state-chartered agricultural college in the country (Michigan State received its state charter ten days earlier). Penn State’s first president, Evan Pugh, was an organic chemist who received his Ph.D with Friedrich Wohler, “the Father of Organic Chemistry.” Pugh, with colleagues at the Rothhamsted Laboratory in England performed the experiments, which proved that the nitrogen in organic compounds in most plants comes from soil nitrates and ammonia and not from atmospheric nitrogen – the basis of the modern ammonia fertilizer industry. According to Pugh’s friend, George Caldwell (later chemistry professor at Penn State, founder of Cornell’s chemistry department, and 1892 American Chemical Society president), Penn State’s chemistry labs “were the best equipped in the country” at the time. Pugh’s impassioned arguments before the legislature were key to Penn State being designated Pennsylvania’s land grant college though he died suddenly of typhus before the end of the process. George Atherton, the seventh president of Penn State, was the motive force behind the passage of both the Hatch Act of 1887 and the Second Morrill Act of 1890.

Exhibits of rare books, manuscripts, and documents associated with the theme of this BCCE will be displayed. Penn State has an extensive and remarkable collection of material related to its founding, the Land-Grant College Act, and college chemistry education in the 1860s - including the Evan Pugh collection. The Atherton collection has key documents relating to the passage of the Hatch Act of 1887 and the second Morrill Act of 1890.

Penn State also has the most extensive and best collection of original Joseph Priestley material in the United States (including the handwritten originals of his autobiography, his will, and letters). A Penn State library vault is also the repository of the “Great Album.” This precious artifact documents and illustrates the First National Chemistry Congress held in the United States (on the Centennial of Priestley’s discovery of oxygen), the event which directly inspired the founding of the American Chemical Society (the largest professional society in the world).

Passage of the 1862 Land-Grant College Act is a seminal event in the history of higher education in America. The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Chemistry, feels privileged to host the 2012 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education celebrating the “Sesquicentennial of the 1862 Land-Grant College Act.” We would be honored if you were a part of this celebration.