There is no place where the influence of soft, sweet music is so effective as in the church or chapel during devotional exercises. Nowhere are greater pains taken to develop this art as a branch of education than in the Convent schools, and nowhere are the results obtained more gratifying.
Sister M. Amelia, the only child of the well-known family Le Duc, of Mechelen, entered the Convent at the age of sixteen, and having completed the Normal course in St. Nicholas, took charge of one of the higher departments in the Boarding-school. She teaches French and Flemish, also drawing, painting and penmanship. The English and German languages are taught in the higher departments.
Proceeding from the Boarding-school, the visitor is led around to the long playground of the Parochial School of Willebroeck. Here between six and seven hundred girls form the long line which is marching through the gate of “d’Externat.” Each division is in charge of one or more Sisters, who conduct the children safely through the street a little beyond the Post-office. Here the procession breaks up, and the children scatter in all directions and run on to their homes in the different parts of the town.
Scarcely have the Sisters finished dinner, when the throng of pupils are at the gate again, eager for admittance. See them coming from all directions, and listen to the clatter of their wooden shoes on the stone pavement! Truly happy in their child-like simplicity, strong, healthy and active, they are worthy descendants of a sturdy old race. When the gate is opened, crowds rush into the yard and begin their games of tag, jump the rope, hide and seek, etc., just as easily in those hard “blokken” as their next-door neighbors, the “Pensionnaires” (Boarders), in fine high-heeled shoes.
The continual use of wooden shoes is hurtful to the feet. They hinder the development of natural gracefulness in walking and cause the feet to become large and very flat.
Sister M. Stanislas superintends the Parochial School. Though small of stature and very delicate, she has worked for years in the cause of education and has become one of the most prominent teachers in the province. In company with her associates, the assistant teachers, she attends the conferences, writes articles on education and conference work, directs the sewing department; in a word, it is greatly due to her zeal, energy and Christian charity that the Girls’ Catholic School of Willebroeck has attained as high a standing as the highly paid public schools of the district.