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FeedFamous Despite Himself
A local teacher makes his reputation by easing up on the rod—just a little.
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Becoming famous isn’t difficult. One need only be slightly ahead of his time.
Like, for instance, Christopher Dock, the Skippack schoolteacher remembered for writing the first American pedagogy, Schulordnung (School Management), a discussion of teaching methods. Respected in his time, Dock was distinguished by his belief that beating students shouldn’t be a teacher’s only means of discipline. He didn’t advocate abolishing corporal punishment—just using it wisely.
Dock’s methods also included individualized instruction, grouping, conceptual understanding, physical education and art appreciation. Some sources also credit Dock for being the first teacher to use a blackboard.
“If he did utilize these methods, he was probably far in advance of his age when the common means of ‘keeping discipline’ was the ever-present ferule (paddle) and an eager willingness to use it often and with vigor,” wrote R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence A. Cremin in their 1953 book, History of Education in American Culture. Dock, they said, represented the 18th century’s cutting edge—“a liberalizing outlook toward child nature and educational methods [that] began to appear among some of the smaller Protestant sects.”
Among Dock’s students were Christo-pher Sauer Jr., a prominent colonial printer, and David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, surveyor, mathematician and inventor for whom Rittenhouse Square is named.
Born somewhere in Germany—possibly Wurttemberg—Dock came to America in about 1714. In 1718, he was hired to teach at a subscription school in the Mennonite community of Skippack. After 10 years, he quit and, in 1735, bought a farm. But Dock was apparently not a successful farmer. Only three years later, he resumed teaching, which he continued until his death.
Dock may have regretted his decision to farm. “To him, the 10 years of farming were a neglect of the teaching profession for which he often felt ‘the smiting hand of God,’” wrote biographer Quintus Leatherman, who interpreted Dock’s account to mean that his harvests had been poor—a form of divine punishment.
No proof exists that Dock was himself a Mennonite, though he seems to have behaved as one. Mennonites are pacifists, and one story is that Dock was drafted in Europe, then discharged when he refused to bear arms.
But Mennonites were also pietists, whose organization was inherently loose. Many pietists never formally joined any denomination. According to Dock biographer Gerald C. Studer, they “saw no need to join a human institution when they lived a life of discipleship to Christ.”
Pietism was a 17th-century Protestant movement whose primary goal was to revive practical—as opposed to strictly ritual—Christianity.
Education was extremely important to Mennonites, who linked personal piety to a thorough understanding of Christian doctrine. They read the Bible closely and wanted their children to do so. Despite the claims of Benjamin Franklin and other bigots that the Germans were stupid and uncultured, approximately 75 percent were literate. In fact, they had as many newspapers and printing presses as the more numerous English.
