Historical study of Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College, 1873-1943

This investigation traces the historical development of Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College, 1873-1943. It does not deal with other aspects of higher education in Arkansas, such as the histories of the University of Arkansas and other colleges established in the state. This study begins with a discussion of the development of tax supported higher education in Arkansas from the territorial period to 1872. Frontier conditions that existed in Arkansas up to the 1850's did not encourage the development of education, least of all tax-supported colleges. Arkansas did not establish a tax-supported college until after the Civil War and was encouraged to do so by the provisions Morrill Act of 1862.A.M. & N. College (originally Branch Normal College of the Arkansas Industrial University) was authorized by Reconstructionist Republicans in 1873, and put into operation by the Democrats in 1875, in a rented frame building in Pine Bluff. Joseph Carter Corbin was the founder and builder of Branch Normal College during its first twenty-seven years of operation.From its inception, the school's curriculum was oriented toward teacher-training. Although called a land-grant college, this institution did not become a landgrant college in any sense until 1890, and did not come close to fulfilling the concept until the J. B. Watson administration which began in 1928.Although a branch of the (A. I. U.) University of Arkansas, A. M. & N. College was not dominated by the University which had no authority in, or control over, the growth and development of A. M. & N. College. Control of the A. M. & N. College had been vested in the Board of Trustees, the Governor(s) and the Legislature(s) of the state.Only J. C. Corbin, 1875-1902, and J. B. Watson, 1928-1942, had been able to assume any authority in directing the growth and development of the College. Leaders of the College in the period from 1902-1928 had no authority to guide the direction of the institution.In the historical development of the college the following were phases in the institution's development: (1) Branch Normal College, 1875-1921, (2) the institution's struggle for survival, 1902-1928, which was most difficult, (3) the land-grant concept from 1921 to the present was represented by a change of name, and (4) growth and development into a four-year multipurpose institution with preparation of teachers at the heart of its program--not the land-grant idea, from 1928-1943.Thesis (D. Ed.