George Thomas White Patrick was born August 19, 1857, in North Boscawen, New Hampshire. He grew up in Lyons (Clinton), Iowa, where he attended high school. He received his A.B. degree in 1878 from the State University of Iowa. After graduation he served as temporary high school principal in Marengo, Iowa, for three months. Following that position he was asked to teach for six months in Cedar Falls, Iowa, public schools. When that position ended he moved to Leadville and Crested Butte, Colorado, from 1879 until fall 1882.

Patrick took his B.D. degree from Yale Divinity School in 1885. While studying at Yale his focus changed to philosophy. He attended Johns Hopkins University and took his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1888. In 1894 he studied at Leipzig University and Berlin University in Germany.

Dr. Patrick began his career at the State University of Iowa in September 1887 as head of the Department of Mental and Moral Science, and Didactics. Didactics was later named the Department of Pedagogy, followed by the Department of Education. Although he was in Didactics until 1891, he found the opportunity to teach just one course in the history of education, with the majority of his time devoted to philosophy and psychology.

At SUI, Dr. Patrick established one of the first psychological laboratories in 1890, modeled after the Johns Hopkins laboratory established in 1883. J. Allen Gilbert was hired in 1895 to supervise the laboratory. He and Patrick conducted sleep deprivation experiments and published their findings in the Psychological Review and in the University of Iowa Studies in Psychology.

Patrick married Maud Lyall November 28, 1889, and had two sons, Walden and David. He retired in 1931 and moved to California. George T.W. Patrick died May 21, 1949.