called, and he continued it, without regard to compensation which was necessarily very limited, for ten years. At the expiration of this period he went to farming. On the 28th of 9th month, 1735, he bought from the Penns 100 acres of land in Salford Township, now Montgomery County, for £15, 10s., and, doubtless, this was the tract upon which he lived. For ten years he was a husbandman, but for four summers he taught school in Germantown, in sessions of three months each year, and it would seem to have occurred during this period. While away from the school he was continually impressed with a consciousness of duties unfulfilled, and in 1738 he gave up his farm and returned to his old pursuit. He then opened two schools, one in Skippack and one in Salford, which he taught three days each alternately, and for the rest of his life he devoted himself to this labor unceasingly.
In 1750, Christopher Saur, the Germantown publisher, conceived the idea that it would be well to get a written description of Dock's method of keeping school, with a view to printing it, in order, as he said, that other school-teachers whose gift was not so great might be instructed; that those who cared only for the money they received might be shamed; and that parents might know how a well arranged school was conducted, and how themselves to treat children. To get the description was a matter requiring diplomacy because of the decided feeling on the part of Dock that it would not be sinless to do anything for his own praise, credit or elevation. Saur, therefore, wrote to Dielman Kolb, a prominent Mennonite minister in Salford, and a warm friend of Dock, urging his request and presenting a series of questions which he asked to have answered. Through the influence of Kolb the reluctant teacher was induced to undertake a reply and
