Agriculture and Natural Resources, Institute of (IANR)

 

Date of this Version

1925

Document Type

Article

Citation

Published in THESE FIFTY YEARS: A HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA (Lincoln, 1925).

Abstract

IT MAY be said that it took eighteen years to lay the foundation of agricultural instruction and research in Nebraska, and another eighteen years to build on this foundation. The eighteen years beginning about 1890 marked a period of great development for the Industrial College as well as the University itself. A School of Agriculture was early established and in a comparatively few years began to number its students in the hundreds. What the agricultural department of the Industrial College had heretofore lacked in numbers, this secondary school supplied. For the first time, the college farm began to be regarded as an educational center of its own. Then came its rapid development with the erection of several of the magnificent buildings of today. By 1909 agriculture had reached such importance in the Industrial College that a separate Agricultural College was once more established, with the farm campus for its headquarters.

The University itself prospered greatly in these years, and this prosperity was reflected in the increasing development of the Agricultural College. The total enrollment in the University passed the 2,000 mark in the academic year 1899-1900 and the 3,000 mark in the year 1906-1907, these figures 'including students in all the schools and colleges. In 1899 it was stated that the University had students from as far west as California and as far east as Japan. More money for the support of the University and its Industrial College became available. The tax for the support of the University, which had been cut to a quarter of a mill and raised to three-eighths of a mill, during the early days of the University, was again restored to the full mill in 1899. Agricultural instruction and experimentation were benefited by the "Second Morrill Act" of 1890, the Nelson Amendment of 1907, and the Adams Act of 1906, all bringing more money to the agricultural side of the institution. Agricultural extension began to develop with scores _ of farmers' institutes and short courses being held in every section of the state. Here we also find the beginning of home economics instruction for women, culminating in the latter part of this period in the erection of the home economics building on the farm campus. All in all, this was a period of development such as would hardly have been conceived to be possible in the eighties.

Share

COinS