WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, founded in St. Louis, under an act of incorpora tion by the state of Missouri iu 1853, comprises several departments, and is intended to embrace the whole range of university studies, except theology, and to afford opportu nity of complete preparation for every sphere of practical and' scientific life. The char ter provides that " no instruction, either sectarian in religion, or partisan in politics, shall be allowed in any department of said university; and no sectarian or party test shall be allowed in the election of professors, teachers, or other officers of said university, or in the admission of scholars thereto, or for any purpose whatever." The university comprehends-1. Smith academy, essentially a preparatory school; 2. Mary institute, a school for young ladies; 3. the college; 4. the polytecltnic school; 5. the law school. The interest of a lecture endowment fund is used for the support of lectures calculated to promote the objects of the institution. Forty scholarships of $1,000 each have been
founded and arc available to students under proper regulations. A trust fund of $30,000 has been accepted from the Western sanitary commission for the establishment of 20 free scholarships in the college or polytechnic school, to be filled by children of descendants of union soldiers in the late war. The polytechnic school embraces courses in civil and mechanical engineering, chemistry, mining and metallurgy, building and architecture, and science and literature, for all of which the university is well supplied with apparatus. The collections in mining and metallurgy contain over 13,000 speci• mens. A collection of casts of celebrated fossils, well known throughout the country as the most valuable of its kind, forms one of the most attractive features. Number of professors iu 1880, 29; other instructors, 35; students in all departments, 1021. Presi dent, William G. Eliot, D.D.