In September she was again in London for a Committee meeting, and there were the usual applications to consider, and the reading and talking with the workpeople. She inspected the new rooms and the boarding-house, and talked over the possibility of Levy's going to France upon business. After her return to Chichester and for many months we find almost daily entries "Embossed much French and dictated a great deal for L." During this summer she was oppressed by the consciousness that the mental training of the blind had not taken its due place in her scheme. She wanted to find something that would afford instruction and at the same time recreation for the poor, something to awaken and enlarge their interest in the external world. She found that the perceptive faculties which take the place of sight suffer from a want of due cultivation, and she wished to remedy this by enabling the blind to obtain information about natural objects. Something, she thought, might be done by a development of the sense of touch, and by arranging a Natural History Museum in such a manner that every specimen could be handled. In connection with the Museum, she proposed to form a department for the exhibition of inventions in aid of the blind. These were to be arranged without reference to the "sighted," and in such a manner that the blind could easily examine and compare them. An exhibition of this kind was opened in Paris in October 1886, but the idea originated in the fertile brain of Bessie Gilbert. Meanwhile the Museum for her poor was the first thing to be started, and she prepared for it by visiting the Chichester Museum. In September we read: "Went to Museum to ask the cost of stuffing birds and about collections of eggs, and the order of arranging birds. Settled with E. that she should ask Mr. ---- to shoot some birds, and with Mr. H. that he should tell Smith the bird stuffer to come to me next Wednesday." Mr. ---- seems to have had only moderate success with his gun, as a later entry records, "Received two birds from Mr. ----." There are frequent accounts of "looking over eggs," "arranging glass case for the stuffed birds, and talking about the Museum to all who could give advice or make useful suggestions." Early in this year a large oil painting of blind men and women at work round a table in the Euston Road was painted by Mr. Hubbard. An engraving taken from the picture, with an account of the institution, was inserted in the _Illustrated News_ of 24th April 1858, and in May the picture was purchased "by subscription" for the sum of ten guineas, and fixed outside the shop, where for many years it attracted the notice of passers-by. It was engraved for the use of the Institution, and may still be seen on the Annual Report, Price Lists, etc., whilst the original painting hangs in the Berners Street Committee Room.