Page:The Life and Works of Christopher Dock.djvu/9



years ago the name of Christopher Dock, the pious schoolmaster on the Skippack, was unknown to the reading world, and the light of local fame, extending from Germantown to Goshenhoppen, which in the eighteenth century gave a genial glow to his life, had faded to an almost imperceptible ember. To-day it is no exaggeration to say that any treatise upon pedagogy which should omit recognition of his important labors would be regarded as a failure, and his reputation as a leader in educational development in America is universally recognized.

Many learned authors have vied with each other in doing homage to the memory of one so worthy. To have written the earliest American book upon the subject of school teaching is a fact sufficient in itself sooner or later to attract the attention of men of letters, but that fact is much emphasized when the study of his essay discloses that he was far in advance of his time and that in his methods of teaching and of enforcing discipline he forecast what more recent experience has proven to be correct.

Moreover, he was virtuous in life, sweet in disposition and lovable in character, so that when the simple people who surrounded him, grown to maturity, sought to impress upon their children an example of modest merit, they ever recurred to the conduct of the pious Schoolmaster.