.jpg)
The school that became Texas A&M University, the first public institution of higher education in Texas, was founded in 1871 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. Established under the Morrill Act of 1862, it was originally proposed as a branch of the yet-to-be-created University of Texas, but the Texas legislature never gave that university any authority over Texas A&M. For much of its first century, enrollment was restricted to white men who were willing to participate in the Corps of Cadets and receive military training. Shortly after World War II, the legislature redefined Texas A&M as a university and the flagship school of the Texas A&M University System, cementing the school's status as an institution separate from the University of Texas. In the 1960s, the state legislature renamed the school Texas A&M University, with the "A&M" becoming purely symbolic. Membership in the Corps of Cadets became voluntary, and the school became racially integrated and coeducational. (Full article...)