142 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



all these States the fields are ripe unto the harvest, but the laborers are 

 few. 



I cannot too earnestly urge upon you the importance of devising 

 means and methods for the prompt occupation of these and other 

 States, with competent and active organizers. During the year I have 

 visited officially twenty-four States, and everywhere I found a zealous 

 interest and harmonious spirit among the brotherhood. Indeed, the 

 order was never in finer spirit or more united in purpose than it is 

 to-day. 



If asked what is the greatest and most essential need of our order, as 

 contributing most to its ultimate and triumphant success, I should unhes- 

 itatingly answer, and in one word Education ; education in the mutual 

 relations and reciprocal duties between each other, as brethren, as neigh- 

 bors, as members of society ; education, in the most responsible duties 

 of citizenship; education, in the science of economical government; 

 education, for higher aspiration, higher thought, and higher manhood 

 among the masses ; education, in a broad patriotism, which should bind 

 the great conservative masses of the country in the strongest ties of fra- 

 ternity and union. Hence I urgently commend to your most favorable 

 consideration the importance of providing at once a plan by which 

 competent lecturers can be actively employed and maintained in the 

 field. Zealous, faithful, and untiring, as has been your national lecturer, 

 Brother Terrell, yet the service rendered by him was not a tithe of what 

 is urgently demanded from all sections of our territory. I commend to 

 your consideration the policy of employing lecturers at fixed salaries, 

 to be paid from the national treasury, or treasuries of the States in which 

 they shall be employed, or from both, jointly, whose entire time shall be 

 devoted to the work, and in sufficient number that the whole field may 

 be canvassed during the year. Selected for their peculiar fitness, and 

 employing their whole time, they would give us a service which, for effi- 

 ciency, could be secured in no other way. In most of the States com- 

 prising this council, the entire service of at least two good lecturers could 

 and should be constantly employed, even should it require the temporary 

 abandonment of local or State enterprises. 



Never, perhaps, in the history of this order has there been, or will 

 there be, a period when the demand for this indispensable service will 

 be so great as now ; and never can the expenditure of money, if wisely 

 directed, be so effectual and so profitable to our order. In view of its 

 great importance and the urgent demand for it, I trust you will pardon 

 me, if I most earnestly insist that this department of our work shall have 

 your most deliberate and earnest consideration. 



