Christopher Dock

Christopher Dock (c. 1698 – 1771) was a Mennonite educator. He immigrated to the United States by 1714, becoming a teacher at Skippack in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (present-day Montgomery County, Pennsylvania) by 1718. After teaching for ten years, he turned primarily to farming, and bought 100 acres (0.40 km²) in Salford Township in 1735. Three years later, he returned to teaching and continued as a schoolmaster until his death late in 1771, when he failed to return home from the Skippack school. He was found there on his knees, where it had been his habit to pray for his students.

He wrote, in German, the earliest known teaching methods text in the U.S.: Schul-Ordnung (School Management), a book on general pedagogy. The book was completed on August 8, 1750,^[1] but was not published until 1769.^[2] It was written through the efforts of Christopher Saur of Germantown, a printer whose son was a student of Dock's. He was so impressed with Dock's teaching style, which was becoming well known, that he asked him to write a guide so that others who taught children could benefit as well.

The Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is named for him.

Dock was a practitioner of fraktur, the Pennsylvania Dutch folk art named after the fraktur typeface. Christopher Dock gave his students little illustrations of a bird or a flower, as well as "Vorschrift" (a writing lesson) as a reward.

Christopher Dock was a German Mennonite.He died in his schoolhouse praying.

Notes

References

• "Christopher Dock." American Eras, Volume 3:The Revolutionary Era, 1754-1783. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.:Gale, 2008 Document Number: K2438000307
• "Christopher Dock." Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Cneter. Farmington Hills, Mich.:Gale, 2008

Further reading

• Christopher Dock, Colonial Schoolmaster: The Biography and Writings of Christopher Dock by Gerald C. Studer. 1967.

Reissued by Herald Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8361-3644-6

• Skippack School: Being the Story of Eli Shrawder and of one Christopher Dock, Schoolmaster about the year 1750 by Marguerite de Angeli. 1939. Illustrated children's book, ages 9–12.

Reissued by Mennonite Publishing, 1999. ISBN 978-0836191240

• "The Gift is Small the Love is Great" by Frederick S. Weiser.

External links

• Christopher Dock - History

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