ABSTRACT
Fully understanding the reluctance of college faculties to deviate from the tried and true ways, Butler attempted to convince the faculty of Columbia College to fulfill a historic role by responding to the challenges posed by the breakthroughs of the 1890s. In 1890 Butler had written that Columbia College's curriculum was typical of many contemporary colleges, sharing the fate of all the older courses of study, mainly literary in character, in which the pressure of circumstances has. The collapse of Latin, although not accompanied by the apocalyptic rhetoric invoked during the collapse of Greek, proved even more important. In a period of two years, Butler had completely reversed his views on the admission of conditioned students. The cautious introduction of subjective judgment, or what Butler called the "human element", into the admissions process marked the end of a long period of adjustment of the relations between high school and college.
