I am now fully convinced that this want _must be_ supplied _before_ any other step can be safely or usefully taken. Nay, I believe that, until this indispensable preliminary measure is accomplished, money, and effort, and legislation will be, _as they have been_, money, and effort, and legislation _nearly_ thrown away. Since 1834, this state has expended more than _five millions_ for the support of her common schools, and, at the end of ten years, I see but little improvement. In this immense expenditure, not a dollar has been spent to secure this great prerequisite--_good teachers_; and hence the system has not only failed to obtain general favour, but is in danger of becoming more and more unacceptable the longer it is tried. It is sad to think that we have thus wasted _five millions_ of dollars, and _ten years_ of time, to say nothing of the labour expended and obloquy encountered, and must now re-commence from the foundation; but so it is. I know of no cause which so much needs a _general movement_ as this. Let not its friends shrink from the undertaking because they may not be able to operate in all, or even in many of the states. Let it be remembered that if a commencement is made in one state, and a report of results sent forth, it will serve to start the good work in all the rest. The necessities, the crying necessities of this cause, are far and away before those of the Temperance Reform, or of Colleges, or of Foreign Missions. He who, being fit, should devote himself to this cause, would confer a greater benefit on his fellow-man than he could possibly do by any other use of his time and talents. The missionary to a heathen land opens _the Book of Life_ to his fellow-man; the missionary in this cause opens _the mind_ of his fellow-citizens, not only to the Book of Life, but to a knowledge of all those rights and duties, without which our free institutions cannot stand to encourage and reform the world. If my gifts and domestic relations permitted, I should devote myself to a mission in this and other states for the purpose of impressing on Legislatures, philanthropists, and teachers, the _necessity of Teachers’ Seminaries_. A gentleman, supported to operate in this cause, might be employed in this way. He could visit different states one after another, and address the citizens of each county in the county town, after long and full notice. Besides addressing the people publicly, he could appeal to leading individuals privately, and engage them to act with him for this object. Meantime, he could be obtaining educational statistics for future use, and ere long he could make such a report as would set the people to work in earnest, and for their own sakes.