Norman De Jong was born in Rock Valley, Iowa in 1935. Raised in a Christian home, he was formally educated in Christian schools from elementary through college. After college he enrolled at the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in United States history and then, in 1972, a Ph. D. in Educational Foundations. His first book appeared in 1968, under the title of Education in the Truth. Used in numerous college and seminary classes, it survived five different editions and has finally gone out of print.

Dr. De Jong spent the majority of his adult life in the field of Chirstian education, serving as an administrator at four different communities, but devoting the majority of his career to training teachers at Dordt College and at Trinity Christian College. He has lectured extensively in South Africa, in Newfoundland, and on the island of Cyprus. He has served as adjunct faculty at Calvin College, at Covenant College, and at Greenville Presbyterian Seminary. In 1993 he was ordained to the ministry in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

"I have just read Norman De Jong's dissertation about Boyd Bode, his life, his philosophy, and his work at OSU. De Jong is an education scholar-and much to my pleasure, a living philosopher in the field as well. I recommend this book, both for researchers interested in this period and/ or subject area, but more importantly for inclusion in education libraries. This book is a masterful piece of scholarship which has added new dimension and background to our work on the history of the OSU School. This is the most illuminating I have come across concerning education in the first half of the 20th century."