The Morrill Act was clearly pioneering thinking for the American period and attracted strong criticism from academia. At the time, schools taught religion, law and medicine. Morrill's vision came from Europe, where European farmers were proven to produce higher yields on smaller plots of land than the United States (LaMay 77). It was there that Morrill sought to bring people of different backgrounds, economic and social classes to be educated and to benefit all. By allowing widespread education in the United States, the country has opened many doors to a wider population of the country. When Morrill wrote the act, he also had a stimulating method of producing the money needed to finance the colleges through interest from the sale of public lands ("The Land Grant Tradition"). With the passage of the Homestead Act, prior to the signing of the Morrill Act, the Homestead Act gave the state and western territories 160 acres of land. When Morrill brought the law back to the House and Senate, he urged Congress to increase the land area to thirty thousand, but most importantly including the teaching of military skills as well as the land grant provision (LaMay 78). The Morrill Act brought together more new American landowners and provided a way to educate people about caring for the land and how to improve yields. With the advent of the industrial age, the timing was almost perfect for Justin Morrill and his idea of ​​expanding from Europe. Land Grant Colleges were a major movement in the education system in the United States. With the passage of the Morrill Act, he decreed that federal lands should be allocated to each state to provide a school to educate the people in agriculture and the mechanical arts. The purp...... middle of paper ...... in black land-grant colleges across the South. Improving the Uses of Agriculture Through Research Again, the creation of the land grant colleges had many factors that played into getting these colleges started and the process of granting land to each state. The main factors that played an important role are social needs aimed at increasing the efficiency of agricultural production. Agriculture was the primary source of income for much of the Western population, and current production was extremely inefficient. Land Grant Colleges were a major step in building the land grant system, where now more than 10 percent of American undergraduates are enrolled in a Land Grand College. An educator's dream that rose above traditional education, to create a "more humane college," as Justin Morrill states, capable of educating the broader, diverse, and growing population of the United States..