d. But think of the concentration required to write
letters which allow of no interruption and no revision.

In the autumn of this year an excellent scheme was inaugurated, capable
of a development which it has never yet received. The object of it was
to enable blind persons living in the country to learn a trade suited to
their own neighbourhood, and to be instructed in reading and writing
without the expense and very grave risk of a prolonged residence in
London.

It was proposed to send a blind teacher, with his wife, to lodge in any
village or town where there were persons whose friends were willing and
able to provide for their instruction. These persons were to be taught
at their own homes, or in some more convenient place, a remunerative
trade, such as cane and rushwork, the making of beehives, rush baskets,
and garden nets; mat-making, chair-caning, etc. They were also to be
taught reading, and the use of appliances for writing and keeping
accounts.

The Association did not undertake to supply any work, it had to be found
in the neighbourhood. With the help of the charitable it was considered
that this ought not to be difficult; and even if the blind did not
entirely earn their own living, the little they could do would be a help
so far as it went. Bessie had proved long before this that employment,
with the intercourse it brings, is the greatest alleviation to the
suffering of many a blind man or woman. During the autumn of 1865 two
blind persons in the country were taught trades at their own homes, and
also learned to read and write. The cost was not more than L10 for each
person, a sum much less than that which has to be provided for those who
are sent to London for training.

Some day, perhaps, these peripatetic blind instructors may once more be
sent out by the Institution, with advantage both to themselves and
others.

A period of steady quiet work was now before Bessie. Letters, appeals,
investigations, and reports filled her time.

The Archbishop of York presided at the annual meeting in 1866, and the
balance-sheet for that year shows receipts amounting to L7632. She found
herself engaged in a large commercial as well as a philanthropic
undertaking; and the success of her industrial work began to tell, not
only in Great Britain, but in the United States of America. She was much
gratified by the report of the Principal of the Pennsylvania Institution
for the Instruction of the Blind, 1866, in which