On Feb. 12, 1855, Gov. Kinsley S. Bingham signed into law an act for the establishment of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, now known as Michigan State University (MSU).  The College became the nation’s premier land-grant university and the prototype for the entire land-grant system created when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862.

The act granted lands to each loyal state to support a college where the leading object 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 order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.