St. Louis School of Fine Arts.

Organized May 22. 1879.

The establishment of an Art School upon a broad and permanent foundation has always been part of the plan of Washington University. For nearly twenty-five years art instruction has been embodied in the course of study. In 1875 special students were admitted to the Drawing Department, and class and public lectures were given on Art History. The same year an evening school was opened.

From this time the growth of the Department became so marked and the work of the students assumed such a degree of importance, that it was deemed advisable to reorganize the Drawing Department. In accordance with this, on May 22d, 1879, the Directors of the University adopted an ordinance establishing a Department of Art in Washington University, from which the following extracts are taken:

"A Department of Art is hereby established as a special department of Washington University, to be know as The St. Louis School of Fine Arts.

"The objects of said department shall be:—instruction in the Fine Arts; the collection and exhibition of pictures, statuary and other works of art, and of whatever else may be of artistic interest and appropriate for a Public Gallery or Art Museum; and, in general, the promotion by all proper means, of aesthetic or artistic education."