Butler, Nicholas Murray (1862–1947)

One of the most publicly prominent leaders in higher education throughout U.S. history, Nicholas Murray Butler was best known as the forceful and innovative educator who served as president of Columbia University from 1902 to 1945. During that time, he was recognized as an institutional empire builder, a prolific writer, an eloquent public speaker, an active politician (Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1912, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson defeated Republican William Howard Taft and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt), an activist for international peace initiatives, and a Nobel Peace Prize awardee (shared with Jane Addams in 1931). Butler was also a controversial figure who was viewed by many associates as a social snob with little regard for race, class, or religious equity and with little tolerance for academic freedom. His educational ideas could be perceived as contrarian or inconsistent. For example, although he argued for educational reform based on scientific study and he could precisely define the appropriate length of school vacations and time in seat, he was convinced that elementary and secondary education suffered from too many artificial delineations of subjects and grades and not enough attention to learning from observation and creative practice. Although he preferred a fairly standard list of secondary subject requirements, he also called for less frequent use of college entrance requirements as curricular guidance.

Eventually nicknamed “Nicholas Miraculous Butler” by Theodore Roosevelt, Butler was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Henry L. and Mary M. Butler. The oldest of seven siblings, five of whom survived into adulthood, he moved with his family to Paterson, New Jersey, in 1864 and attended public schools. His father was a textile manufacturer who was active in local politics.

Butler entered the Columbia University undergraduate division, then known as the School of Arts (later named Columbia College) as one of 78 students in his class. Forty-eight of those graduated with bachelor's degrees in 1882, including Butler, who then progressed through a Columbia master's degree (1883) and doctorate (1884). After a year in Europe, including postdoctoral studies in Berlin and Paris, he returned to live with his family in Paterson and take on unpaid teaching at Columbia. Within a year, he was made an assistant in the Department of Philosophy, Ethics, and Psychology. With the encouragement of President Frederick Barnard, he launched a Saturday lecture series on pedagogy for schoolteachers and then became the founding president of the School for the Training of Teachers (renamed Teachers College in 1892). Butler married Susanna Schuyler in 1887 and was elected to the permanent Columbia faculty 3 years later. In 1895, his only child, Sarah, was born.

Butler's early faculty years included his founding (in 1891) and editorship of the Educational Review, his service on the New Jersey State Board of Education, and his appointment as dean of the [Page 126]Columbia philosophy faculty. He was named acting president of Columbia University in 1901 and president in 1902. Butler's presidency was notable for continuing the physical and curricular expansion that began under the presidency of Seth Low (1890–1901), when the campus moved from downtown New York City on Forty-Ninth Street to uptown at Morningside Heights. The student body increased from 4,000 to 34,000 during the Butler years, graduate schools grew and flourished, and the Morningside campus acreage more than doubled. Butler involved himself not only in bureaucratizing and managing a huge institution but also in national and international statesmanship. He attended the world peace effort, First Hague Conference (1899), served as president of the American branch of the Association of International Conciliation (1907–1912), and was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1925–1945).

...