John Pancoast Gordy

Background

John Pancoast Gordy was born on December 21, 1851, near Salisbury, Maryland. He was the son of Elijah Melson and Martha Ellen (Shepard) Gordy.

Education

Gordy's scholastic record was prophetic of the career which he followed throughout his life. He attended the schools in the neighborhood of Salisbury.

At twenty four, he entered Wesleyan University from which he was graduated in 1878 with special honors in English literature, logic, psychology, and ethics.

He received the degree of Ph. D. from the University of Leipzig in 1884.

Career

At seventeen, Gordy began to teach. At twenty, he became the principal of a small academy in Farmington, Delaware, and two years later, he was appointed vice-principal of an academy in Dover.

Following his graduation, he served until 1882 as a tutor in metaphysics, then went abroad for travel and study. Returning to the United States, he was a professor of philosophy and pedagogy at Ohio University at Athens, 1886-96, then at Ohio State University, 1896-1900.

In 1901, he was called to New York University as professor of the history of education and of American history, a position which he held until his death in New York City in 1908. He was an enthusiastic teacher.

He threw himself into the work of lecturing with a passion which emphasized but which did not obscure the salient points he desired to bring out. Consequently, his courses were popular and at the same time stimulative in a marked degree.

Achievements

• Gordy’s one important work in the field of history and politics was his History of Political Parties in the United States, in two volumes, published in 1895 and republished in two subsequent editions.

Works

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  • Rise And Growth Of The Normal-school Idea In The United States

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Lessons in psychology. Designed especially as an introduction to the subject for private studets, and as a text-book in normal and secondary schools

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A History of Political Parties in the United States in Three Volumes

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • A Broader Elementary Education

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • New Psychology

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Views

Gordy's treatment of American history was somewhat narrowly political and his interest in the subject, both as a writer and teacher, was secondary to his primary concern with the fields of philosophy and education.

Although it displayed no great originality in treatment and lacked an adequate analysis of the social and economic forces giving rise to party movements, it served a useful purpose as a general compendium of American party history.

He intended to continue this work in a number of volumes, but his absorbing duties as an educator and then his sudden death prevented the completion of the project. The remainder of his publications were in the fields of philosophy and education.

These, too, were useful works, though in pedagogy, as in history, Gordy was inclined to be encyclopedic rather than closely scientific, and wrote with a somewhat unwarrantable dogmatism.

Connections

Gordy was married on March 27, 1884, to Eugenie Day, of Dresden, Germany. They had one daughter, Gwendolen, whose death in 1908 led them, by mutual compact, to take their own lives.

Father:

Elijah Melson

Mother:

Martha E Sheppard Gordy

15 July 1829 - 11 January 1900

Half Brother:

Harry Miles Gordy

March 1883 - January 1975

Half Brother:

Vaughn Smith Gordy

1860 - 1944

Half Brother:

Elijah Vaughn Gordy

30 July 1889 - 27 February 1993

Half Brother:

Wilbur Fisk Gordy

October 1894 - 17 August 1964

Half sister:

Lavina Ellen Gordy Melson

1850 - 1926

Half sister:

Ruth Marie Gordy

Born in March 1886.

Half sister:

Wilbur Fisk Gordy

14 June 1854 - 23 December 1929

Wife:

Eugenie Day Gordy

1861 - 31 December 1908

Son:

Gwendolyn Gordy

1888 - 31 December 1908