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HIGHER EDUCATION
Three state institutions for higher learning
are supported by Iowa: the State University of Iowa at Iowa
City, the Iowa State College at Ames, and the Iowa Teachers
College at Cedar Falls. If you should visit any of these you
would be impressed with its fine buildings and campus.
Perhaps you would say that it must have required the mind of
a great genius to plan such an institution. But if you read
the history of these schools you will learn that they are not
completely planned as they now are, and then built according
to that plan. Instead, each one is much as was Topsy in
Uncle Tom's Cabin who said that she "just growed."
Iowa's institutions of higher learning have
passed through many trials and hardships. It took years of
patient waiting and persistent asking to get the money that
was needed to build them. The funds had to be voted by the
legislatures and oftentimes the legislators were slow to see
the needs of the institutions.
For many years each of the three schools was
managed by a board of its own. This meant that three separate
boards appeared before each meeting of the legislature to ask
for money. It also meant that there was danger of an
overlapping of work and, in some cases, jealousy among the
institutions.
In 1904 the "Whipple Commission" was appointed
for the purpose of making a thorough study of the problem of
higher education in Iowa. The commission visited other states
to learn how they dealt with the problem. In 1905 and in
1907, bills were introduced in the legislature to put the
three institutions under ne State Board of Education. Each
year the bill was passed in the Senate but defeated in the
House of Representatives. In the session of 1909 the bill was
again presented. This time it passed both houses and on July
first of the same year the new board took over the control of
the three institutions.
The Whipple Bill says: "The state university,
the college of agriculture and mechanic arts, including the
agricultural experiment station, and the normal school at
Cedar Falls, shall be governed by a State Board of Education
consisting of nine members and not more than five of the
members shall be of the same political party.... The said
Board of Education shall appoint a Finance Committee of three
from outside its membership and shall designate one of such
committee as president and one as secretary."
THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
Iowa's pioneers were interested in higher
education. The territorial legislature of 1840 voted for the
establishment of an Iowa university at Mount Pleasant. It did
not, however, vote funds for it. In the same year the United
States Congress passed a law granting seventy-two sections
(two townships) of land for the purpose of establishing a
university in Iowa when the territory would become a state.
The State Constitution of 1846 required the
legislature to "protect, improve, or dispose of lands for the
purpose stated."
An act of the first legislature of the State
of Iowa in February, 1847, established the State University of
Iowa at Iowa City, which was then the state's capital. But it
took several more years for the institution to actually get
started. The first classes were taught in 1855.
There seems to have been much sentiment, in
early days of statehood, for more than one university. This
was, no doubt, largely due to the difficulties of travel in
those days. In 1849, two branches of the university were
voted to be established at Fairfield and Dubuque. Grounds
were secured and a building erected at Fairfield but, since no
funds for maintenance had been made available, it was
abandoned. The branch at Dubuque was never started. In 1857,
bills were introduced but not passed, to establish branches at
Glenwood, Fort Dodge, and Delhi. The Constitution of 1857
settled the entire discussion by stating that there should be
but one university and that it should be located at Iowa City.
When the university was opened, women were
permitted to attend but in 1858 the Board of Trustees refused
to let them do so. Later, during the same year, the Board
permitted them to attend the Normal department.
The State University today consists of a
number of colleges, such as the College of Medicine, the
College of Law, the College of Liberal Arts, and others. The
first to be started was the Liberal Arts college. The others
have been added from time to time as the demand for them grew.
For many years the University was greatly
handicapped for want of funds. Its building were crowded,
equipment was poor, and the instructors received small
salaries. A committee of the legislature in 1874 recommended
radical reductions in the then small salaries and said, "those
who labor with such love of their profession as will make them
content with less remuneration than can be obtained in
ordinary business." As late as 1892 it is said that in one
instance three professors used during the year the same room.
It was nineteen by twenty-one feet in size and was lighted by
one window.
But better times were ahead. Mr. C. R. Aurner
says: (Volume IV, History of Education in Iowa.)
"With the construction of new buildings, which
still continues, the University presents a far different
prospect than under the conditions which had prevailed for so
many years. The continued agitation, or one might say
begging, for a fair share of the state's funds for what was
absolutely essential for respectable accommodations finally
bore fruit in the rapid changes which have taken place since
1898."
IOWA STATE COLLEGE
The pioneers of Iowa realized the
possibilities for developing a great agricultural state. As
early as 1848 the legislature asked the Congress of the United
States that the site and buildings of Fort Atkinson in
Winneshiek County, together with two sections of land, be
given to Iowa for the establishment of an agricultural
college. This request was unusual because such colleges were
then practically unknown. In fact, Iowa was the second state
to establish an institution of higher learning for the purpose
of teaching agriculture, Michigan being the first.
The State Agricultural Society took up the
cause for the people who were interested in securing such a
school. Many petitions were presented to the legislature
urging the establishment of a college where information in
regard to farming could be obtained
A bill to establish a "State Agricultural
College and Farm" became a law March 22, 1858. It provided
for a board of eleven trustees and made an appropriation of
$10,000. The Board of Trustees was to decide upon a location
for the school. In June, 1859, it chose a site near Ames, in
Story County.
In 1862, the United States Congress passed a
measure which was to play an important part in promoting the
study of agriculture throughout the nation. It is known as
the Federal Land-Grand College Act. Through this law the
United States Government gave to Iowa's agricultural college
204,000 acres of land. Iowa's legislature promptly accepted
the provisions of the law but it was too busy during that time
with the Civil War to give further attention to organizing and
developing the college.
The Iowa Agricultural College and Farm was
first opened for students on October 21, 1868. It had about
seventy men and women enrolled during the first term. By a
vote of four to three, a committee of the board of trustees
had decided to admit women.
The Federal Land-Grant Act said that the main
purpose of the new college "shall 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 such manner as the
legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe, in
order to promote the liberal and practical education of the
industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of
life."
Iowa was a pioneer in introducing the subject
of home economics. The "Ladies' Course," offered in 1871,
listed "Domestic Economy" as one of the subjects which women
might take. Benjamin F. Gue, president of the Board of
Trustees, in an address at the formal opening of the college
said: "In this the People's College, dedicated to the
encouragement and promotion of industry, we must aim to make
labor attractive, not only to the boys who are seeking
knowledge in their department, but to the girls, who can never
become accomplished and thoroughly educated women without a
knowledge of the art of housekeeping and the best methods of
conducting every household occupation with system,
intelligence, and womanly grace."
One of the most important factors in the
growth and development of Iowa State College has been the
establishment of the agricultural experiment station. Here
valuable information for farmers is discovered and collected.
But the farmers who had worked to get an
agricultural college and farm were not satisfied with having
teaching and experimental work done on the campus alone. They
asked that the information which they needed on their farms be
brought to them. To meet this demand, the legislature
established the Extension Service in 1906. The act provided
that Iowa State College should "undertake and maintain a
system of Agricultural extension work. Under this the said
college shall be authorized to conduct experiments in the
various portions of the state, and in giving instructions
wherever, in the judgment of the college authorities, it shall
be advisable."
A bulletin of the college says concerning its
campus and buildings "One hundred and twenty-five acres, that
were once rolling prairie, have been made into a vast garden,
dotted with beautiful buildings. About the central plaza are
grouped in a great rectangle the main buildings of the
college, constructed of white stone, classic in their
architecture. And about them in turn are some seventy other
buildings housing the many activities of Iowa's great
technical school."
IOWA STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE
Professor D. S. Wright, who taught the first
class in the State Normal School and continued as an
instructor for half a century, says: * "The cause of
state-supported normal instruction in Iowa never lacked for
earnest friends and able advocates, and it early received
legislative consideration. The second General Assembly
divided the state into three normal school districts, and
provided for the location of an institution for the training
of teachers in each. The centers selected for these schools
were Andrew in Jackson County, Oskaloosa in Mahaska County,
and Mount Pleasant in Henry County. The legislative
appropriation of $500 for the maintenance of these
institutions proved absurdly inadequate. In two of the towns,
Oskaloosa and Andrew, through the enterprise of the citizens,
buildings were erected and equipped, and some attempt was made
to carry out the provisions of the act. But the plan was a
foredoomed failure and in 1855 the act creating the schools
was rescinded by the General Assembly and a Normal Department
in the State University was established in its place. After a
prosperous existence of seventeen years, during which time it
graduated 185 students, this department was merged into the
chair of didactics in 1873." * Fifty Years at Teachers
College. The way was now open for an institution
devoted entirely to the training of teachers.
In 1876 a law was passed to establish a State
Normal School at Cedar Falls. The building and grounds which
had been a soldiers' orphans' home were to be used by the new
institution. The school was opened September 6, 1876, with a
faculty of four members and 27 students.
As in the case of the State University and the
State College, so the State Normal School, too, had its early
hardships. Prof. Wright says: "The attitude of the general
public was one of indifference or at best of curiosity
untouched with sympathy. The average Iowa citizen stood ready
to say. 'I told you so,' if it failed . . . . At home and
abroad for terms and years the 'experiment' was at most a
thing of doubtful utility and dubious success."
In 1893, President Seerley said that for three
years it had been necessary to assign six classes daily to
each teacher and that he himself met from three to five
classes. The classes included from fifty to seventy-five
students each. The enrollment was about 800 at the close of
1893; during the year 1898-1899 it had grown to over 1,600.
To meet the needs of the growing institution, appropriations
for additional buildings have, from time to time, been made.
The name of the institution was changed, in
1909, to "Iowa State Teacher College" and a four-year college
course, leading to the degree Bachelor of Arts in Education,
was established. In the same year, the college was placed
under the management and control of the state Board of
Education. In its first report the new board said that the
change in name was justified because the institution could no
longer be considered as a normal school in the general meaning
of the term. It further said, "All must and do agree that the
Iowa State Teachers College is a magnificent
institution-honored at home and abroad. it trains for all
departments of the common schools, and if the interpretation
of the constitutional provision establishing this college has
been liberal it surely will be conceded that the work
attempted has been nobly done."
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