2 THE INLAND EDUCATOR. logs, and I have often seen walnut trees in the woods where he cuts them, and they are not shaped like this at all; they are fifty feet or more to the first limb; they grow large and tall and straight in the woods." race. Even the minister seeking the highest and best for his congregation and town, rises under the spur of his neighbor minister's Success-when alone, in the country, he would content himself with the same dead level. The merchant who can serve the people better or more cheaply than his neighbor merchant takes the trade, and so each is brought always to his best and becomes in consequence a better man. Competition has been a chief means for the betterment of life from the beginning until now. Struggle for success which seeks to damage an op "Why," asked Miss A., "does the walnut. have one form in the woods and another form in the open field?" All sorts of guesses followed: "the open country tree would grow the most walnuts; it would cast the widest shadow; it was by far the most beautiful; it would not blow down and hurt or kill something; it grows in a different soil." Miss A.'s Socratic questioning at last tri-ponent in the contest is wrong; but struggle umphed: "plants require light and air; the potato growing in the cellar shows it; houseplants that turn toward the window show it; plants growing with one half in shadow, as on the edge of a thick forest, have the largest and most vigorous branches on the outside. The tree growing in the country can get light and air in all directions; in the forest these are to be had in only one direction, upward. Trees crowded together begin to struggle upward for that which they most need; as the race goes on they become taller and taller until the monarch of the forest is the result." "Is it better for the trees then to have to compete with each other for light and air as well as to struggle against the storm?" "Undoubtedly it is, Lucy," said Miss A.; "struggle is everywhere a good thing; it not only makes trees tall and strong and valuable, it is struggle that keeps all life healthy." "Is it good for men?" asked Lucy. "Where," asked Miss A., "do our great men live-in the country or the city?" A long discussion followed in which it was concluded that men become great in cities for the same reason that trees do in forests: "the lawyer with his theory of the case is met by another with a counter-theory and the struggle to win lands both on a higher mental plane. The physician who does not work hard, study his cases, and keep up with the times soon falls out of the which seeks to render a better service to man than ever was rendered before is right. There may indeed be some other way for men to grow wiser and better than through struggle to win, but it has not yet been discovered. The common proverb 'necessity is the mother of invention' is a popular half statement of the same thing. The playground is one of the best places to fit one for life, because the generous rivalry which seeks to win by outdoing, instead of obstructing the course of another contestant, is just what the world always has needed and needs to-day." "But is it not selfish, Miss A., for the tree or the man to try to outstrip neighbors?" asked Lucy anxiously. "No," answered Miss A. confidently, "the tall fine tree bears more fruit, casts a longer shadow, yields better lumber, is one of the grandest objects in the landscape because of its competitive growth. And the strong man can be of far more service to his fellows because he has strengthened himself. If every individual in society took care of himself and those naturally dependent on him what need would there be of our board of charities and corrections and our alms-houses? For their sake,' said the Great Teacher, 'I sanctify myself.' Some hundreds of thousands of men in the world to-day are spending large sums of money on themselves, preparing to render good service to man later. This is a thing as different from selfishness as day is from night; it is in fact the only way to be really unselfish." "But Miss A.", said James, "it must be that soil and dryness have much to do with the growth of trees: on the bluff west of here there is a deep forest, you know, and yet the trees are small. The soil is rocky and does not hold moisture." "Yes," said Miss A., "the entire environment of tree or man must be considered. Struggle is not enough, or the fox jumping after grapes would have grown strong; Oak Bluffs is a summer outing on the east coast of Martha's Vineyard-the only soil is sand blown up from the coast into hills by the east wind: the oaks growing there are small and they always will be, just as they are in some of the Knob Stone regions of Indiana. In 1887 I went to the summit of Gray's Peak. As we passed through the prairies of Illinois, rie sunflowers were on every hand 'Ten thousand saw I at a glance new and interesting as they all were, could not keep us from noting that our prairie sunflower was still with us but with a still further shortened stem. At Gray, Montana, we took bronchos and started for the summit of Gray's Peak. Torry, Gray and other peaks shut in a great amphitheatre at their feet carpeted with stemless flowers. The prairie sunflower was there with many of its friends that had accompanied it with their shortening stems from the plains. It was a view never to be forgotten,-a circuit of bare peaks above, passing below into a circuit of snow, and this joined from side to side by a floor of many-colored flowers. The struggle with storm and frost and an unfriendly soil has reduced these flowers to the bare necessities of existence. It is the lesson of life everywhere, that so much struggle as is necprai-essary to bring the powers to their highest development and leave time and freedom to employ them in productive ways, is necessary to the highest attainments of which the individual or the race is capable." Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.' These grew on tall stems ten or fifteen feet high. Persons riding on horse-back could hardly reach to pull one. As we approached Denver, however, where the soil is poor and the altitude is something like a mile above sea level, we had to stoop to gather prairie sunflowers. From Denver we passed up Clear Creek cañon, one of the loveliest journeys it is possible for any one to make. The high granite hills, the great engineering skill it required to construct a railroad up the cañon, the miners washing the gravel from the gold in long troughs, Georgetown with its mountain rim, Silverplume with its white mounds and smoking chimneys, the irrigation canals, which mean so much to all our western country, here cut in solid rock and there crossing gorges in huge wooden conduits, Idaho Falls with its baths, Green Lake which we journeyed to see, with its unrivaled beauty and its lonely but majestic setting almost at the limit of vegetation, The reporter of these school lessons, one day in 1890, missed his connection with a steamer on the east side of Loch Long. The scene can be different from what it is there, it hardly can be more enchanting; the road on the east shore of the lake for miles is lined with holly trees: Cowper incidentally describes the adaptation of this tree to its environment: “Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen No grazing cattle through their prickly round But above, where nothing is to fear, We gathered and mounted one of these. "prickly" leaves from "below," and also one of the "smoothe, unarmed" ones from "above," and brought them to show to our friends. RICHMOND, IND. CHRISTOPHER DOCK.* By ROBERT J. ALEY. "The seal, once laid on pliant wax, THE HE great teacher everywhere and in all times has been characterized by great earnestness. He has never been satisfied with mere intellectual development. He has never been willing to stop short of his pupil's salvation. His definition of salvation has not always been orthodox, but it has always included the idea of self-freedom. The fundamental motive, either explicit or implicit in the mind of every great educator from Plato to Arnold has been, "I must so teach my pupil the truth, that through it he shall become free," free maybe from the state, free possibly from the devil, or perhaps free from self. Every great teacher has also been conscious of the very large part that he individually has in this struggle for freedom. The full realization of the fact that his "lineaments may forever leave their impress" on the soul of the learner, can scarcely fail to fill him with earnestness and humility. Sometimes a teacher who is really great may not be known far from home. He may be a modest man, and he may work in a community that is not given to advertising. If his If his work leaves an impress upon the community, such that the stranger who comes there years after he is dead can still find definite traces, we may be sure that he was a great teacher. Should you go into the valley of the Skippack, a tributary of the Schuylkill, you would be able to find there some traces of a country-school teacher, although he has been dead for more than one hundred twenty-five years. This man *I am greatly indebted to Judge Pennypacker's sketch. was Christopher Dock, the first writer on pedagogy in America. We are accustomed in our thinking of America to give New England the credit for everything. We credit her with all that is good in politics, religion, art, literature, education and what-not. We have done this so long that New England actually thinks she deserves the praise, and in turn tells us that if we would drink from the fountain head we must come to her. Perhaps in the future when some historian tears himself loose from New England influence and gives himself without reserve to the study of the Schuylkill valley, it will be found that here where the Dunker, Mennonite, Schwenkfelder, Pietist and Quaker lived together in peace and harmony, many of the things which we hold dear either had their origin or were greatly modified. The student of the history of education soon finds that it is to this field he must look for much of his knowledge of colonial schools. To this region came a superior class of people. They were thinking people-that is why they left Europe. Among the Pietists, Quakers and Mennonites were many really distinguished scholars. With such a class of people schools were a matter-of-course. The schools were naturally modeled after the best German ideals. may not be wholly devoid of interest if we study one of these schools and its teacher, Christopher Dock. It Christopher Dock was a Mennonite who came from Germany to Pennsylvania about 1714. Nothing whatever is known of his ancestors or of his own early life. We may reasonably infer that he was a well-educated young German. He was certainly an enthusiastic believer in his church. Its tenets were so strongly impressed upon him that they were always the guiding principles of his life. Tradition has it that before coming to America he was drafted into the German army, but was discharged because of his had himself under perfect control, and in his whole life was never known to show the slightest anger. Two men who had a discussion about this element of Dock's character concluded that he had never been fully tested or he would show anger. They decided to test him. Soon after, as Dock passed along, one of the men reviled him in the most bitter and profane manner. Dock's only reply was,-" Friend, may the Lord have mercy on thee." This self-control must certainly have served him well in his long service as a teacher, and is surely not the least of the many elements that contributed to his remarkable success. Soon after coming to America Dock opened a school among his brethren on the Skippack. Although the compensation was very limited, he continued the school for ten years. He then became a farmer, buying a small farm from the Penns. He continued to farm for ten years, teaching, however, four summer terms of three months each in Germantown. All the time he was on the farm he had the consciousness that he ought to be in the school-room. He felt that he was called to be a teacher-and he was. What great teacher is not called? The real teacher receives as divine a call as ever comes to the preacher. His work, if he deal with children, is more important than that of the preacher. He has it in his power to mould life, in fact he comes in contact with the only really plastic thing in the world. The preacher's contact is with material that has largely lost its plasticity, and as a result he turns out products many of which are formal. The teacher has it in his power to turn out only real products. This call finally became so emphatic that he could resist it no longer, and in 1738 he gave up his farm and returned to the school He felt that in the school-room he could serve God and man best, and to the school he went. For the remaining thirtythree years of his life, he gave himself unselfishly to the cause he loved. He opened two schools, one in Skippack and one in Salford. These schools were twenty miles apart. He taught in one on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday evening he walked over to the other school and taught it on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, walking back to the first school either Saturday evening or Monday morning. One will read much history and touch much life before he finds a nobler example of the higher sacrifice, than this answer that Christopher Dock gave to what he believed to be the divine call to duty. He did his work so well that his fame extended beyond the two townships of Skippack and Salford. In 1750, Christopher Sauer, the well-known Germantown publisher, concluded it would be wise to have Dock write a work on pedagogy for publication. He said this ought to be done, so "that other school-teachers whose gift is not so great, might be instructed, that those who care only for the money they receive, might be shamed, and that parents might know how a well-arranged school is conducted, and how themselves to treat children." Dock was very modest and besides he had religious scruples against doing anything that might seem for his own praise. It required diplomacy to secure. from him the desired work. Sauer worked through Dielman Kolb, a prominent Mennonite preacher and a very warm friend of Dock. After much persuasion, Kolb finally induced Dock to undertake to answer certain questions which Sauer had proposed. Dock completed the work in August, 1750. One of his stipulations, however, had been that it should not be printed during his lifetime. For nineteen years his wish was respected. Finally, a number of friends tired of the long delay, banded together and succeeded in getting Dock's consent to print. But now the manuscript was lost. Dock characteristically wrote to the publisher, "I should not trouble myself about the loss of the writing. It has never been my opinion that it should be printed in my lifetime, and so I am very well pleased that it has been lost." Finally, after more than a year's search, the manuscript was found. It was immediately published, 1770. The title of the work is very long, and it is usually known as the Schul-Ordnung. The importance of the essay consists in two things; first, it is the earliest work on school teaching written and printed in America; second, it gives us the only picture of the colonial country school. Very few copies of the original publication are in existence, possibly only one-that owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Sauer issued a second edition in the same year as the first. Only two or three copies of this edition are known to be in existence. In 1861 the Mennonites of Ohio made a reprint of the second edition. Dock is also the author of A Hundred Rules of Conduct, which is perhaps the earliest American work on etiquette. He wrote some seven or eight hymns, some of which are still used in the church service of the Mennonites. One evening in the fall of 1771, Dock did not return from his school at the usual time. Heinrich Kassell, the farmer with whom he lived, made search for him, and he was found in the school-house on his knees-dead. It was his custom every evening after school to spend some time in the school-house alone in communion with his God. It was while trying to gain inspiration and strength for the next day's work that the silent messenger of death found him. His was certainly a fitting death to a life well spent. We shall now examine somewhat in detail the picture he gives us of the colonial school. In his introductory statement he deplores the fact that school teaching in this country is far different from in Germany, since there the school stands upon such pillars that the common people cannot overthrow it." He fully understood the great difficulties encountered by the teacher and the great responsibility resting upon him. "I considered," he says, "my own unworthiness, and the unequal influence of parents in the training of children, since some seek the welfare and happiness of their children in teaching and life with their whole hearts, and turn all their energies to advance the honor of God. Others are just the opposite in life and teaching, and set evil examples before their children. Through this it happens that not only between the school-master and the children comes this unequal training, though he otherwise follow his calling truly and uprightly before God and man, but he is compelled to use unequal zeal and discipline; whereupon the school-master at once gets the name of having favorites, and of treating one child harder than another, which, as a matter of fact, he must do for conscience sake, in order that the children of good breeding be not injured by those of bad breeding. In other respects it is undoubtedly the school-master's duty to be impartial, and to determine nothing by favoritism or appearance. The poor beggar child, scabby, ragged and lousy, if its conduct is good, or it is willing to be instructed, must be as dear to him, though he should never receive a penny for it, as that of the rich, from whom he may expect a great reward in this life. The great reward for the poor child follows in the life to come. In brief, it would take too much time to describe all the duties which fall upon a school-master to perform faithfully toward the young, but still longer would it take to describe all the difficulties which encompass him at home if he is willing to economize as his duties require. As I took all this into consideration I foresaw that if I would and should do something valuable to the young it was necessary for me, daily and hourly, with David, to raise my eyes to the mountains for help." It would be difficult to find a modern educator who has more truly grasped the real problem of school management. It would also be hard to find a teacher who goes at his work with better spirit. The method of receiving a new child at school is quaint, interesting, almost amusing. "The child is first welcomed by the |