by his own account barbour "left high school (the patterson-davenport school in louisville) without graduating to enter columbia and (he) left columbia because (he) wanted to get to know people rather than to know too many languages". barbour earlier had claimed that he had enrolled at columbia university as a freshman, studying history and languages although there is no record of a philip barbour in the alumni records of columbia university for the years 1914 to 1920. there is, however, record of a “lamont barbour” (possibly a misspelling of his middle name, lemont) as having attended but left without graduating in 1918.