Seattle's University Pleads for a Building Worthy of the State

The University of Washington is an institution in which the people of the entire state are interested. Located in Seattle, its interests are nevertheless as wide as the boundaries of the state itself. Its leading strings reach to every county, and as it encourages learning, manhood and good citizenship among its students, so much does it add to the morality and patriotism of the commonwealth.

The university is not sectional. It is of as much benefit to Eastern as to Western Washington. In fact, with a roll of about 400 students for the present year there is not a county of the state that is not represented. It is an institution that has not been smirched by scandal since its inception, and its faculty and board of regents have given their best energy and ability to build up an institution of learning worthy the name of the University of Washington.

Up to the present year they have had many difficulties to contend with. The building erected in old territorial days is now entirely inadequate. While the growth of the state, moreover, has been rapid, the appropriations granted by the state have for many years been hardly sufficient to allow the university to keep pace with the constantly increasing requirements. Up to and including the present year it has been found necessary to maintain a preparatory department, as there were no preparatory schools in the state that made a specialty of preparing students for college, but now, owing to the great advancement that has been made in the high schools of the different cities, all preparatory work in the university will be abandoned and none but regular collegiate courses will be maintained.

A candidate for admission must hereafter be at least 14 years old, and must pass a satisfactory examination in six studies out of a list of eighteen specified, one of which must in every case be the English language. There are nine regular departments — philosophy, Greek, Latin, mathematics and astronomy, natural science, physical science, modern languages, English and history, and pedagogy. Each department leads to a degree.

In addition to these regular departments, special departments have been added, among them the department of military science and tactics. In this department there is a battalion of three companies, trained in the tactics of the United States army drill. There is also a conservatory of music and a department of art. A school of mining has also been recently added and will be completely organized and equipped with the necessary facilities when the new building is occupied. Pharmacy is another new department, and when the university is moved to its new building, a department of law, of medicine, of mechanical engineering and of architecture will be organized.

When the university is thus enlarged by the addition of these new departments it will be fully equal to any university of like grade in the United States.

The new building for the university will be ready for use at the beginning of the next school year in September, and it will be fitted up with approved modern appliances for heat, light and ventilation. A more beautiful location for an institution of learning could not be found in the state. There are 240 acres of land in the plat, which lies between Lake Union and Union Bay.

It is to be hoped that the legislature, in view of the good work that the university has done in the past and of the good work that it is capable of doing in the future, will not hesitate to appropriate a sufficient sum to insure the speedy completion of the new building and to maintain the institution at the high standard to which its importance as an institution of learning makes it desirable that it should attain.