PREVENTION, NOT REPRESSION

Don Bosco’s Educational System

Pietro Braido

Istituto Storico Salesiano – Rome

Studi – 11

January 1999

PREVENTION, NOT REPRESSION

Don Bosco’s educational system

Presentation

Don Bosco’s educational system or, more comprehensively, Don Bosco’s preventive experience, is a project: it grew, gradually expanded and became more specific in the different and various institutions and undertakings carried out by his many collaborators and disciples. Understandably, its vitality can be guaranteed in time only by being faithful to the law which governs any authentic growth: renewal, in-depth study, adaptation in continuity.

The renewal is entrusted to the persistent on-going theoretical and practical commitment of individuals and communities. Renewal never ceases. Continuity, instead, can be assured only by a keen engagement with the origins.

The aim of our rapid summary is to provoke an enlivening contact with the primitive roots of Don Bosco’s preventive experience as well as its features. Our summary has no intention of offering immediately applicable programs; we simply wish to describe essential original elements which despite their circumstances and limitations can inspire valid and credible projects now and in the future for very different contexts and settings. This is essential if the legitimate aspiration of working “with Don Bosco and with the times” is to happen without a break in continuity.

This third edition is significantly restructured and expanded; more care has been given to historical data, less space to certain flights of fancy, more light shed on things that might be useful for an inevitable revision and revitalisation, something hinted at by an updated bibliography.

September 12, 1998

Fr Pietro Braido

Introduction

It seems obvious enough that the term ‘Preventive System’ as interpreted through documents left by Don Bosco, especially in the light of his and his closest helpers’ educational experience, is an adequate expression of everything he said and did as an educator. When it comes to how contemporaries of his saw it, it becomes another discussion altogether.

We need to note that the terms ‘preventive’ and ‘repressive’ are perhaps not the most appropriate ones for talking about education that implies direct, out-going activities intended to broaden the personality of the one being educated. It has happened sometimes that ‘preventive’ was understood, and still is in many places, as something that happens prior to education. As we will see further on, Antonio Rosmini and Felix Dupanloup understood ‘preventing’, ‘prevention’ as one part of the overall process of education, almost something which preconditions it. Worse still in certain literature is the understanding of the term ‘repressive’ as equivalent to being non-educational.

It will become more obvious as we proceed that the preventive and repressive systems are two real but relatively distinct educational systems. They have been practised throughout history, be it in families or institutions, in diverse ways. Both are based on plausible motives and can boast of their productive approaches and positive results. One is based on the child[1] and his or her limitations of age, so on a consistent, loving ‘assistance’ on the educator’s part. The educator is present, advises, guides, supports in a paternal (or maternal) way. From this spring educational regimes with a family-style orientation. The other points more directly to the goal to be achieved and therefore tends to see the young person as the future adult. As a consequence the child is treated with this end in mind from the earliest years. From this spring more austere and demanding regimes, schools which strictly follow the rules with regard to law, relationships, or measures which stress responsibility; military-style schools and the like. In reality, for thousands of years of historical experience both theoretical and practical, the two systems have existed in profusely composite versions. Somewhere between them we find, for example, so-called ‘correctional education’, well-known in the penal world as well as the world of education and re-education. It has full legitimacy in historical, theoretical and practical terms. The Councillor of State for the Kingdom of Sardinia, Count Carlo Ilarione Petitti di Roreto (1790-1850) spoke of it with passionate commitment just as Don Bosco was arriving in Turin. We find it in the second chapter of the broad-ranging essay The current situation in prisons and ways of improving them (1840), under the title The history of correctional education and the current state of the art[2]. He also played an active role, as we shall see further on, with young men released from the Generala after a time of correctional education.[3]

At the beginning of his 1877 booklet on the Preventive System, Don Bosco himself wrote: “There are two systems that have been used through all ages in the education of youth: the Preventive and the Repressive”.[4]

It foreshadowed a similar distinction in his note to Francesco Crispi some months later: “There are two systems in use in the moral and civil education of youth: the repressive and the preventive. Both are applied within civil society and in houses of education”.[5]

Don Bosco opted for the first hypothesis and for a tradition which, probably less generalised than the other, he found more in keeping with the times and the youth he was dealing with.

From this perspective he had certainly not developed a preventive pedagogical system in theoretical terms. However, he had knowingly tried out and reflectively adopted principles, methods, means, institutions which allowed him to give young people a relatively complete human and Christian education. He offered his collaborators a unified and systematic approach to education. In fact he never understood ‘preventive’ as something purely preparatory, protective, a condition for education properly so-called or simply limited to the area of discipline or government (Regierung) which for Herbart was one of the three pillars of the art of pedagogy.

In the same booklet on the Preventive system in the education of the young, 1877, the positive educational elements clearly outstrip disciplinary and protective measures in both quality and quantity. He speaks of educators who are “loving fathers”, constantly “present” in their pupils’ lives. They speak, guide, offer advice, “lovingly correct”. The central pillars of his entire educational edifice are indicated as daily Mass and the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. “Reason, religion and loving-kindness” are considered to underpin content and method. His overall practice is inspired by the charity which St Paul praises (1 Cor. 13).

We should mention the happy intuition of the Austrian educator, Hubert Henz, who makes explicit reference to Don Bosco’s Preventive System: “The preventive approach is a way to educate that prevents the moral ruin of the pupil and the need for punishments, and demands that the educator be constantly with the pupil; total dedication to the task of education, a dynamic, complete and fully youthful existence”. The extra that he hopes for from the Preventive System is precisely what Don Bosco intended by his ‘preventive’: to make young people mature and responsible “upright citizens and good Christians”. His Preventive System “looks to this objective and is not exhausted by simply protecting or watching over”.[6]

On the other hand, the 1877 booklet is not the only one that speaks about the ‘Preventive System’ even if it is the first time the term was adopted. Don Bosco would return to it in word and writing during the decade that followed. But his clear ‘preventive’ mind-set on behalf of “poor and neglected [abandoned] youth”, was inspired from the earliest years of his consecration by social work on behalf of poor and neglected youth who needed to be “protected”, “saved”, beginning with ways and resources for introducing them to and helping them grow in the world of grace as well as offering a constructive effort at the level of sustenance, instruction, profession, moral and social growth.[7]

In the final years the ‘Preventive System’ in his writing becomes “our Preventive System” and even “the Salesian spirit”.[8]

This is the point of view from which this work presents Don Bosco’s pedagogical experience in a systematic way: a practical educational experience constantly integrated by reflection and real experimentation.[9]

This reconstruction can be found in the ten chapters in the second part of the book.

Since we are dealing with an experience and not an abstract theory, it cannot be understood without explicit reference to Don Bosco’s personality. This in turn, and the preventive concept itself, become comprehensible in the light of the context in which he worked and the long period of time over which the idea slowly matured. That is described in the eight chapters in the first part of the book.

For the sake of greater clarity the first of these is given over to a basic description of the times and places in which Don Bosco began his work and gradually developed his educational, pedagogical experience. Such a way of tackling the problem of locating Don Bosco the educator in both the short and long term comes from the belief that the ‘Preventive System’, however it might have been applied and understood in Christian tradition, does not exhaust all possible educational systems, nor does ‘Don Bosco’s Preventive System’ exhaust all possible versions of the ‘Preventive System’ itself. It is not a solitary treasure. It has distant origins, primarily in the Gospel. Future developments are no less rich in promise and outlook, if faithful to the principles and to history.

Chapter 1

Don Bosco’s times

Don Bosco lived between August 16, 1815, and January 31, 1888. His birth coincided with the date that marks Europe’s definitive transition from the ancien régime to modern times, helped on by the powerful effect on the course of history wrought by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire (1789-1814). This transition was restrained by decrees issued by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), and the Holy Alliance (September 26, 1815). The former gave temporary shape to Europe’s political geography.

But the upper hand would come from historical events so profound that by the end of the century the face of Europe and, from many points of view, the whole world would end up being altered. Among the most outstanding of the historical events we can single out rapid social and cultural changes, the industrial revolution, the irrepressible aspirations for national unity which were initially overlooked and later carried through with resolute determination in Germany and Italy, Europe’s colonial expansion and consequent economic, political and cultural imperialism.[10]

What happened primarily was a gradual and diversified transition from the secular model of society based on status (Aristocracy, Clergy, The Third Estate), to a bourgeois society based on division of classes. This new society was characterised by growing tensions sharpened through the establishment of an industrial proletariat aware of its own poverty, existing injustices, and also aware of its own importance thanks especially to emerging socialist forces.

The Industrial Revolution is of enormous historical relevance. It was the most dramatic revolution since the Stone Age[11], with unforeseeable repercussions at all levels of human existence: technical and scientific, economic and social, cultural and political. The industrial revolution, resulting from a capitalist background, claims England as its place of origin during the second half of the 18th century. By the middle of the 18th century it had taken firm hold, to varying degrees, in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, and in the United States of America. Italy had to wait until the beginning of the last twenty years of the 18th century. Prior to this some phenomena of pre-industrialisation could have been spotted in places like Turin, but with local import only.

The aspirations towards national, political unity would gradually become clear, widespread and intense, thanks especially to the input of liberal and democratic forces. But they would find opposition from political conservatives, advocates of regionalism, self-interested viewpoints and in Italy as well as all of the above, from the special situation of the Papal States. We have to keep in mind that due to the Congress of Vienna Italy, which for centuries had never achieved national unity, was actually divided into the following political entities:

-the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom under the Austrian Empire (Trent, Trieste and part of Istria had become imperial estates);

-the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza given to Maria Louise of Hapsburg (1815 - 1847), former French empress (at her death it was transferred to the Bourbons of Parma);

-the Duchy of Modena and Reggio given to Francis IV of Hapsburg-Este (1815-1846);

-the Duchy of Massa and Carrara given to Maria Beatrice of Este, mother of Francis IV (when she died, the Duchy was transferred to her son in 1831);

-the Duchy of Lucca given to the Bourbons of Parma and Piacenza and later on joined to the grand Duchy of Tuscany at the death of Maria Louise (1847), when the Bourbons of Parma moved to the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza;

-the Grand Duchy of Tuscany given to Ferdinand III of Hapsburg-Lorain (1814-1824), brother of the Austrian Emperor Francis I of Hapsburg (1806-1832);

-the Papal State without Avignon, given back to Pius VII (1800 - 1823);

-the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies given to Ferdinand IV of Bourbon (1815 - 1825);

-the Kingdom of Sardinia given to Victor Emanuel of Savoy (1802 - 1825 ) including Savoy, Piedmont, Nice, Sardinia with the added territory of the former republic of Genoa[12].

With the development of the stronger nations (England, France, Germany, Austria and Russia), Europe reached its zenith during the second half of the century. During the following thirty years the consolidation of capitalism, the intensity of the industrial revolution would give rise to sharper economic competition and a swifter race to arms. At the same time the need to expand commercially, politically and culturally at a global level was more greatly felt. The first and more widespread manifestation of all this was the appearance of Colonialism, with the consequent overturning of the ‘extra-European’ areas[13]. This is the time when two major powers come to the fore in world history: the USA and Japan.

We should not overlook the massive phenomenon of emigration which, from 1842 to 1914, led to some 30 to 35 million Europeans leaving the Old Continent for the rest of the world. A significant factor was strong demographic pressure: the population of Europe, including Russia, was 180 million around the 1800s. In 1850, the population reached 274 million, and in the 1900’s, it reached 423 million.

Together with the growing complications created by economic life, new social and political orders, and by the admittedly slow-growing expansion of freedoms, in-roads were also made by evidently pluralistic world views, political ideologies and new moral and religious ideas. New and different directions emerged both in ideas and activities regarding individual destiny and the way people associated.

Besides persistent conservative and at times reactionary forces, new ideologies arose: liberal ideologies which continued the substantially bourgeois aspect of the French Revolution; democratic and radical ideologies more closely connected with the Jacobean expressions of the French Revolution; national and, later on, nationalistic ideologies of Romantic origin; still later on, socialist ideologies on the one hand, and Christian social ideologies on the other[14].

For an understanding of the Italian spiritual world, its pastoral structure, the nature of the initiatives related to social work and education and catechetical instruction it may be useful to take an historical look at the leading Italian region of Piedmont. The reason behind this is that Piedmont had been connected with decisive events and remarkable changes in the various fields of politics and religion in the socio-economic field as well as in educational and scholastic fields.

1. Elements contributing to political change

The main political event is the unification of Italy as a nation, and the end of the temporal power of the Popes. This is also why the political history of Italy is inevitably bound up with religious history[15]. At the end of this evolving process (1870 marked the occupation of Rome), the nine states into which the entire peninsula had been divided became one single political body.

It seems appropriate at this point to spell out the succession of Savoy kings:

-Victor Emanuel I (1802-1821);

-Charles Felix (1821-1831);

-Charles Albert (183l-1849);

-Victor Emanuel II (1849-1878);

-Humbert I (1878-1900).

These all took an active part in the national revolution. During the period 1815-1848 the climate of ‘restoration’ prevailed and had, at least partially, a reactionary feel to it. Liberal ideas came to the fore. Movements and societies, often secret societies spread: they were intent on fostering more radical but democratically inspired revolution in political and social fields: the Carboneria, the Federates, the Students League, Joseph Mazzini’s Giovine Italia, Giovine Europa. From time to time there was an outburst of revolutionary movements over the periods 1820-1821, 1830-1831, 1834, 1843, 1845, and 1846. These are were a prelude to the great political social and national upheavals which began in Paris and then reached the main capitals and cities of Europe during February-June 1848: Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Milan, Venice, Palermo, Nola. ‘Constitutions’ were forcefully imposed or spontaneously accepted. These Constitutions would, later on, be withdrawn by repressive authorities. Charles Albert granted the Constitution on March 4, and led the first war of independence against Austria (1848-1849), but was defeated and forced to abdicate.