Our Christmas exhibits have been held every year, at first, as I
have said, for one day only, then for two or three in the rooms
above, and for the last two years in a large room used by the
Hartford Art Society as a studio until it moved to a whole house
across the street. This room has space for our school libraries,
and the room which they had outgrown was fitted up at no expense
except for chairs and a change in the lighting, as a study-room
for the older boys and girls, who also have the privilege of
reading any stories they find on the shelves, which are on one
side only. The other shelves, placed across the room, were moved
to the studio, which is so large that it has space for
story-telling, or oftener story-reading. The winter of the
Dickens centennial, through the month of February, the beginnings
of "David Copperfield," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Dombey and son" and
"Great expectations" were read.

In 1911, a gift of twenty-five dollars from a friend was spent
for the boys' and girls' room, and has bought specimens of
illustration, Grimm's "Fairy tales," illustrated by Arthur
Rackham; Kate Greenaway's "Under the window," "Marigold garden,"
"Little Ann" and "Pied piper", Laura Starr's "Doll book," and a
fine copy of Knight's "Old England," full of engravings,
including a morris dance such as has been performed here, and
Hare's "Portrait book of our kings and queens." The rest of the
money bought a globe for the older boys' and girls'
reading-table, and sent from Venice a reproduction of a complete
"armatura," or suit of Italian armor, eighteen inches high.

In 1912 the boys and girls of grades 7 to 9 in the district and
parochial schools were invited to listen to stories from English