Johnson was born on February 22, 1889, in Toledo, Ohio, the elder of the two children of Henry and Kathryn (McCarthy) Johnson. Both parents were natives of Toledo; his paternal grandparents had come from Holland, the McCarthys from Ireland.
The elder Johnson was a meatcutter by trade but also worked as a police officer. When George was a boy his father deserted the family, leaving his mother in meager circumstances; later she ran a small variety store.
After attending local parochial schools and the preparatory department of St. John's University in Toledo, Johnson, a personable and industrious young man, obtained a scholarship to the college division of St. John's. He graduated in 1910 and, having developed an interest in making the Catholic Church more understandable to non-Catholics, decided to become a priest.
Following two years at St. Bernard's Seminary in Rochester, New York, he was sent to the North American College in Rome, an honor accorded to only a few seminary students marked for leadership. In 1916 Johnson enrolled at the Catholic University of America, where he studied school administration and curriculum construction and received the Ph. D. in 1919.
Upon his ordination in 1914, Johnson returned to Toledo and became personal secretary to Bishop Joseph Schrembs. He then became superintendent of the Catholic schools of the Toledo diocese. In 1921, Johnson was called back to Catholic University as associate professor of education. He remained there until his death and helped bring the school of education to national stature.
As director of the department of education of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (1928-1944) and as secretary general of the National Catholic Educational Association (1929-1944), he kept the bishops abreast of recent trends in public education and publicized Catholic views on educational reform and legislation. For twenty-three years he was also one of the editors of the Catholic Educational Review, and he often prepared the text of statements made by the American Catholic hierarchy on educational matters. Both President Hoover and President Roosevelt appointed him to national advisory committees on education. Though trained along classical lines, Johnson was receptive to progressive concepts in education. Committed to the theory that students learn best by doing, he favored supplementing traditional study and recitation assignments with group discussions, field trips, and projects. He also endorsed the use of objective tests and supported educational programs geared to the individual needs of each child.
Johnson gave concrete expression to his ideas at the Campus School of the Catholic University, which he founded in 1935. Here he adapted the standard Catholic school curriculum, of which religion formed the core, to progressive teaching techniques. The classrooms were designed to facilitate group discussion, and students were encouraged to take part in planning a program of instruction. In 1944, while delivering the commencement address at Trinity College in Washington, D. C. , Johnson died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-five. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington. At the time of his death he had been directing the preparation of curricula and textbooks for the nation's Catholic schools, a project sponsored by the Commission on American Citizenship of the American bishops.
Johnson is best known for his views and ideas on education, which he expressed while being appointed to national advisory committees on education. He rejected the importance of teaching subject matter, and subscribed instead to the belief that Catholic education should involve the total integration of Catholic culture and American society.
