coeducational institution of higher learning founded in 1882 in Tokyo. The school is private but receives some government financing and is subject to some degree of government control. Originally known as Tokyo Senmon Gakko (College), the institution was renamed Waseda University in 1902 and was reorganized after World War II. Waseda has gained distinction in the fields of literature, political science, and business education and includes schools of political science and economics, law, literature, education, commerce, science and engineering, and social science. Attached to the university are institutes of social sciences, comparative law, language teaching, business administration research, research in contemporary political and economic affairs, and system science; a castings research laboratory; an electronic computation centre; and a science and engineering research laboratory.