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 612 MINNESOTA (UNIVERSITY OF) MINNETAREES into a department of elementary instruction, otherwise called the collegiate department. Having completed a four years' course in the collegiate department, the student then has his option to enter at once some one of the professional schools, or to proceed with higher academical studies in the college of science, literature, and the arts. The collegiate de- partment is merely a temporary attachment, it being part of the plan of organization to drop off its studies as fast as the schools can assume them. The lowest class is to be dis- continued at the close of the year 1874-'5. In 1875 the following colleges or departments, with the courses and degrees named, had been opened: 1. The collegiate department, known in the organic law as the department of ele- mentary instruction, having three courses of study: classical, scientific, and modern. The faculty have authority to permit students to select studies from the various courses, but the programme is arranged with reference to the wants of the regular students. No de- grees are conferred in this secondary depart- ment. 2. The college of science, literature, and the arts, which presents a similar variety of courses, but with a large increase of op- tions. The degrees of B. A., B. S., and B. L. are conferred upon students who complete the respective courses and pass the examinations. 3. The college of agriculture, offering an ad- vanced or university course, based on the prep- aration of the collegiate department and lead- ing to the degree of B. Agr. ; and an ele- mentary course coinciding in the main with the scientific course of 'the collegiate depart- ment. 4. The college of mechanic arts, with courses in civil engineering, mechanical engi- neering, and architecture, leading to appro- priate baccalaureate degrees. Post-graduate courses are to be arranged, leading to the mas- ter's and other higher degrees. In 1870 the announcement was made, " No degrees except upon examinations." The government of the university is vested in a board of ten regents, of which the governor, the superintendent of public instruction, and the president of the uni- versity are members ex officio, the remaining seven being appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate, and holding their offices for three years. No applicant is admit- ted to the university without examination, and the only tests of progress are the examinations. The university maintains no dormitories. Tui- tion is free in all departments. Both sexes are admitted. The number of students in 1874-'o was 285. The faculty numbered 14 resident officers and one non-resident. The library con- tained about 10,000 volumes. By a law of 1872 the geological and natural history surveys of the state were intrusted to the university. Considerable collections have been made by the professors engaged in the surveys. The financial basis of the university consists in the following grants of public lands: 1, 46,000 acres to the territorial university; 2, 46,000 acres to the state university; 3, 120,000 acres, being the so-called agricultural grant of 1862, for the benefit of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts; 4, 12 sections of salt lands for the expenses of the geological survey. In 1874 the state legislature made an annual appro- priation of $19,000. The total annual income at that time amounted to $30,000, the institu- tion still retaining about 135,000 acres of pub- lic lands, all within the state. MINNETAREES, a tribe of Indians on the up- per Missouri, who are called by the Canadians Gros Ventres of the Missouri, but by them- selves Hidatsa. They were originally part of the Crow nation, but separated from it after a quarrel. They came to the Mandans in a state of destitution, nearly all the men having fallen in battle. The Mandans did not allow them to enter their village, but permitted them to settle near. They gradually recovered, and adopted many Mandan customs and ideas, but have re- tained their own language. Lewis and Clarke in 1804 found the tribe in two villages on op- posite sides of Knife river near the Missouri. They numbered 2,500, and traded with the great English fur companies, defending them- selves against the Sioux, and making war on the Shoshones and Flatheads. The United States made a treaty with them at the lower Mandan village, July 30, 1825. They have never been hostile to the whites. When the smallpox swept away most of the Mandans in 1838, the Minnetarees were reduced to about 500. In 1842 they numbered about 300 males and 800 females, in 75 lodges, their village lying about 8 m. above the Mandans; but in 1845, under the constant attacks of the Sioux, they united with a part of the Mandans in a palisaded village at their present site, where Fort Berthold was erected the same year. They were then estimated at 760 souls. Though a treaty was made at Laramie in September, 1851, to which they adhered, the Sioux con- tinued their hostilities, and in 1862 killed Four Bears, their head chief, a man of remarkable ability. During the civil war no arms or am- munition was issued to these tribes, while the Sioux procured supplies from the British terri- tory, and in spite of all treaty obligations killed and plundered these unoffending Indians, who were unable to go on their usual hunts. They ceded some of their lands in 1864. In 1870 peace was again made with the Sioux and arms were furnished to the Minnetarees ; at the same time a reservation in Dakota and Montana was set apart for them, but in 1873 they were still at Fort Berthold. They are reduced to 528, the Mandans, and since 1863 the Rickarees occupying part of the village. The Minne- tarees are tall, well made, and light in color. They dwell chiefly in peculiar earth-covered lodges like those of the Mandans, 30 to 50 ft. in diameter. Every winter they go many hundred miles up the Missouri and Yellow- stone valleys to hunt. Their religious ideas and rites are similar to those of the Man-