John Miller Keagy, the sixth child of Abraham Keagy and Barbara Boehm, was born on August 31, 1792 in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, United States. He was of Swiss descent, a great-grandson of Johannes Keagy who came to America about 1715. Of his early years little can be said save that, being delicate and studiously inclined, he was "designed in early life for some one of the learned professions. "
John Miller Keagy was trained in medicine and practiced for a few years, but his imagination was caught by the common-school agitation, the Lancasterian and Pestalozzian enthusiasms of the day, and the notion of professional preparation of teachers.
Keagy's brief career was marked by success in teaching, at Asbury College, Baltimore, 1818, at the Classical Academy, Harrisburg, 1826, and at the Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, 1830-1835. He was an accomplished linguist, having a thorough knowledge of French, German, and Hebrew as well as Latin and Greek; but his major interest was science. He was a trustee of Dickinson College, 1833-1835, and at the time of his death had just been called to the chair of natural science.
It was, however, as a contributor to the movement toward professionalizing education that Keagy's influence was felt in the state. As the chairman of a committee of the Philadelphia Association of Teachers, he prepared an address, "To Teachers and Friends of Education throughout the State of Pennsylvania" (1831), stressing the importance of investigating "those principles appertaining to the philosophy of mind, its faculties, their arrangement and the best methods of development. " Four years later he led in calling the State Educational Convention at West Chester, which effected a permanent organization, of which he was made vice-president, having as its stated purpose the "advancement of education throughout the State, especially through the medium of schools and lyceums, and to cooperate with other lyceums in the diffusion of useful knowledge. " To promote the same end, Keagy assisted in founding and contributed to the Monthly Journal of Education (January 1835) which became the Schoolmaster and Advocate of Education in 1836.
His most noteworthy contributions to educational literature were articles in the Baltimore Chronicle, 1819, published as An Essay on English Education (1824); and the Pestalozzian Primer (1827), one of the earliest examples of Pestalozzian influence in American textbooks. Though the Primer's motto was "to teach a child to think, " the author carried the Pestalozzian principle of A B C of Observation to an absurdity. He gave twenty-six lessons on the alphabet, passed then to nonsense syllables of three letters, devoted seventy-eight pages to monosyllables, and, after 104 pages, brought the pupil to words of more than two syllables.
Keagy was a devout Methodist.
Keagy was a member of American Sunday School Union.
Keagy was a man of practical piety.
Keagy married Helen M. Hulings, by whom he had three children.
