Domestic Heroes: Saint Nicholas and the Catholic Family Father in the Nineteenth Century‪.‬

Suddenly, as if on its own, the door opens widely: the holy man "in his Sunday best," with mitre and crosier, stately enters; the headmistress follows with two little angels who carry, besides a basket full of goodies in the middle, a book with locks on the one side and a rod on the other. (Rudolfsz, 1868, p. 548) (1) In 1868, this scene is described in a Belgian teachers' journal as an old, disappearing custom in schools. The "stateliness" and purity of the tradition surrounding Saint Nicholas, so the author stated, were in decline in the "unchildly" times of the late nineteenth century and Saint Nicholas was slowly disappearing from children's lives.