The state institution of higher learning, as incorporated by an act of the legislature, approved February 28, 1878, by the name of the “Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi,” and established in pursuance of that act, shall continue to exist as a body-politic and corporate, by the name of the “Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science,” with all its property and the franchises, rights, powers, and privileges heretofore conferred on it by law, or properly incident to such a body and necessary to accomplish the purpose of its creation; said university may receive and hold all real and personal property conveyed to it for such purpose.