No religious instruction is given in Belgian schools, except in
convent schools, or in those where the teachers are entirely under the
Church. But almost all children have to learn the Catechism at home.
They need not understand it, but they must be able to repeat the
words. This is to prepare them for their _Premiere Communion_, or
first Communion, to which they go when they are eleven or twelve years
old. It takes place two Sundays before Easter Day.
The custom is for all members of the family to wear new clothes on the
day of a _Premiere Communion_, but the child's dress is the important
thing. In Belgian towns, for some time before, the windows of the
shops in which articles of dress are sold are full of gloves,
stockings, ties, and other things marked "_Premiere Communion_." A
boy's dress is not much trouble. He wears black trousers, a black
jacket, and white gloves and tie. But great thought is given to seeing
that a girl looks well in her white dress, and other nice new things.
She thinks and talks of nothing but her clothes for ever so long
before, and especially of her "corsets," which she then puts on for
the first time.
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