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George Augustus Gates was born on January 24, 1851, at Topsham, Vermont. He was the son of Hubbard Gates, a miller, who moved to East St. Johnsbury, and died in 1861.
His mother, Rosetta Gates, a graduate of Newbury Seminary, after the death of her husband opened a millinery shop to support the three children.
George was educated at St. Johnsbury Academy and at Dartmouth College, where he received the degree of B. A. in 1873.
After two years as principal of the Vermont Morrisville Academy, he entered Andover Seminary and was graduated in 1880, having meanwhile tutored in Boston and spent two years in travel and study abroad.
Because of his modern views he was refused ordination by an ecclesiastical council at Littleton, New Hampshire, presided over by President Bartlett of Dartmouth, who ten years later made amends by bestowing upon him the degree of D. D.
Called to a union church at Upper Montclair, New Jersey, Gates was ordained by a council headed by Lyman Abbott.
After a successful ministry of seven years, Gates accepted the presidency of Iowa College in 1887.
During his thirteen years in Iowa, Gates was offered the presidency of two state universities and two Eastern colleges, but he declined out of loyalty to the task which he had assumed at Grinnell.
Due to his wife’s health, however, he felt obliged to seek a mountain climate, and in 1900, to the deep regret of his associates and students, he laid down his work at the college.
For the following ten months, he was pastor of the First Congregational Church at Cheyenne, Wyo. During this brief residence, he set in motion moral forces which overcame the stubborn resistance of politicians and secured the repeal of a state law licensing gambling.
Though he declined overtures from the American Missionary Association School at Talladega, Alabama, from Fisk University, and from Washburn College, Kansas, partly because they seemed climatically unsuitable, he accepted the call to the presidency of Pomona College, Claremont, California, and began his service there in December 1901.
Again, as at Grinnell, his public service far transcended the bounds of his official relations, and all problems of vital public interest in Southern California enlisted his virile cooperation.
After seven years of intensive work at Claremont, he felt it necessary to seek release from increasing burdens and spent the first half of 1909 on a trip to Australia and New Zealand. On his return, he was urged once more to become the head of Fisk University at Nashville, Tennessee.
The appeal to his chiv- alric missionary spirit was too strong to be resisted, and in September 1909, he began his last brief period of work as an educator.
Injured in a serious railway accident early in 1912, he attempted with indomitable courage to resume his work, but the effort ended in physical and mental collapse. A leave of absence in the mountains gave him sufficient energy to officiate at the Fisk Commencement in June.
He then sought further restoration at Winter Park, Florida, but repeated cerebral attacks sapped his vitality and his despondency over the hopelessness of his situation led him to take his own life. He was buried at Grinnell, Iowa.
The most conspicuous educational event of Gates's administration was the founding of the chair of “Applied Christianity, ” which expressed a new idea in the teaching of religion. According to The New York Sun, "Dr. Gates was considered one of the foremost leaders in the higher education of the African-American race. "
Gates's judgment of men was fine and sure, and he strengthened the faculty by attracting to Grinnell a group of young instructors of unusual ability.
His deep interest in the practical application of religious teachings also inspired his affiliation with the Kingdom, a weekly on which he collaborated with H. W. Gleason, John Bascom, Josiah Strong, Jesse Macy, John R. Commons, and Washington Gladden.
A fearless crusader, he assailed the “unscrupulous methods” by which a “book trust” introduced its publications into the schools, and gave publicity to his attack through his book, A Foe to American Schools (1897).
Gates came to the presidency of Iowa College without the training of the professional educator, but with a vigor and independence of mind and conviction, a transparent honesty of heart, a shining idealism, a persuasive power of speech, and a winning manliness and sympathy which made him a power in public relations as well as within college walls.
His Friday morning chapel talks were events which those who heard them never forgot.
In 1882, Gates married Isabel Smith of Syracuse.
