elected to the chair of physical science in Westminster college, Fulton, Missouri. In June, 1855, he was elected the first president of Westminster college, and he served in that capacity until October, 1861, six months after the Civil war had broken out. At that time he recommended to the curators to close the college till the war should be over, and resigned his position. The military authorities, having occupied the place, without preferring charges, demanded of him, on account of his Southern sympathies, an oath of allegiance and a bond for the observance of the same. This oath he could not consistently take, as it would have implied that he had previously forfeited his allegiance, which was not the case. After detention in prison for some months, he was finally paroled to Canada, the loyal states, or Europe. Soon after this, he went to Europe, where he passed the year 1861-62, chiefly at Paris, in study.
On his return, in 1862, he settled in New York, and being still on parole, he engaged in financial affairs. The public owes to him the simultaneous system of electric reporting, the "ticker," which, in its improved condition, is in such general use to distribute news of the markets of the exchanges. The developments of this instrument have revolutionized business. He is its inventor, and by it he made a fortune, as he was receiving $30,000 per year when he sold the invention. Doctor Laws has completed courses of study in three professional schools. He has taken the course in theology already spoken of; a course in the law school of Columbia college, New York city, receiving the degree of LL.B. and being admitted to the New York bar in 1869; and also a four years' course at Bellevue Hospital Medical college, receiving the degree of M.D. in 1874.
Owing no doubt to his record in earlier years as an educator in the State of Missouri, in 1875, he was elected to the presidency—the "chancellorship" of the Missouri State university and entered on his duties there, July 5, 1876, holding the position until July, 1889. During the thirteen years of Doctor Laws' presidency, the number of students increased from three hundred to eight hundred and fifty, and the productive funds of the institution (which were $205,000 at the beginning of his administration), increased to over half a million, during his incumbency. Fully twenty years of his life prior to 1889 were laboriously and most successfully devoted to the interests of education in Missouri, amid the agitations and controversies incident to the development of a state university dependent upon state legisla-
