All the changes or variations made by Don Bosco to what he had written on the preventive system are intertwined with the idea of amorevolezza, loving kindness. These changes or variations dealt with the Rectors, assistants who like “loving fathers should speak and act as guides on every occasion, give advice to and lovingly correct [the young]”.
The preventive system makes a friend of the pupil; it makes the pupil affectionate to the point that the educator will be able to speak the language of the heart both during and after the time a pupil is educated. And “once he has won over the heart of the one he protects, will be able to wield great power over him”.
For this reason, “every night, after the usual prayers and before the pupils go to bed, the Rector or his substitute should publicly address the boys with some affectionate words”. The results will match the premises, namely, “The pupil will always be his teacher's friend and he remember with pleasure the direction he received, and will still consider his teachers and the other superiors as fathers and brothers”.1044
We find the term in the most significant situations: an encounter,1045 at the time of forgiveness
1046
in Confession
1047
in an educational relationsh ip,
1048
in the “system”,1049 in teaching,1050 in pastoral ministry
1051
and in a community or where people are together 'as a family'.
1052
Finally, there are connected terms which denote visible affective and effective value: “declared love”,1053 heart, benevolence,1054 affection,
1055
gentleness and patience.
1056
4. The basis of amorevolezza: religion and charity, reason and friendship
The little virtues included in amorevolezza - having the young know that they are loved, sincerely sharing their interests - take on a moral and pedagogical dignity and consistency, thanks to the bigger virtues on which they depend and which inform them. With virtues like these, the limits of a simple dual relationship are overcome and the system is guaranteed the stable features of social relations, universality at an already formally pedagogical level.
1044 Il sistema preventivo (1877). p.46, 50, 56, 60, OE XXVIII 424, 428, 434, 438. OE
1045 Writing about the lad who was being chased out of the sacristy at St. Francis of Assisi church, Don Bosco says:
“He was trembling and crying from the beating he had been given. Have you heard Mass? I asked him with all the
loving kindness I could muster”.
1046 Esercizio di divozione alla misericordia di Dio. Turin, Eredi Botta 1846/1847, p. 75, OE II 145.
1047 G. Bosco, Cenno biografico sul giovanetto Magone Michele..., p. 27, OE XIII 181.
1048 G. Barberis, Cronaca, quad. 14 bis, conference to Rectors, 4 Feb. 1876, p. 45.
1049 Letter to Prince Gabrielli, June 1879, E III 482. Recalling his stay in Marseilles with the Brothers of the Christian
Schools in March 1877, Don Bosco told Fr Barberis what he told the Brothers who asked him how he acted to attract
“the sympathy and benevolence of everyone”: “I explained something of our preventive system to them, loving
kindness etc., while mostly in colleges (boarding schools) we only find the repressive system, serious, grumpy
superiors”. (G. Barberis, Cronichetta, quad. 11, p. 69).
1050 Letter to Fr Giuseppe Bertello, 9 April 1875, E II 471.
1051 Cf. for example his address to past pupil priests, BS 4 (1880) no. 9, Sept. p. 11.
1052 Letter to the Bishop of Biella, 4 March 1852, Em I 156; G. Bosco, La forza della buona educazione..., p. 74, OE
VI 348; letter to pupils at Lanzo, 3 Jan., 1876.
1053 For example, in a letter to teachers and boys, E III 6, 53, 128 (1\876), 447 (1879); IV 138 (1882).
1054 E III 379 and 425 (1878), 525 (1879), 550 and 641 (1880).
1055 Cf. for example E II 328-329, 329-330, 331, 339, 343, 359, 361-362, 377, 378. 379 (1874); E III 5, 9, 42, 64
(1876); 380 (1878); IV 9, 35, 40, 55, 59 (1881), 248-249 (1883), 238 (1884).
1056 F.X. Eggersdorfer, Jugenderziehung (München, Kösel 1962), interprets it as “affective benevolence” (pp. 239-
241); On amorevolezza, cf. R. Zavalloni, Educarsi alla responsabilità Milan, Edizioni Paoline 1986, pp. 95-105,
Significato di una pedagogia dell'amorevolezza; X. Thévenot, Don Bosco éducateur et le «système préventif», in
Éducation et pédagogie chez Don Bosco. Colloque interuniversitaire, Lyon, 4-7 April 1988. Paris, Éditions Fleurus
1989, pp. 95-133. La place de L'amorevolezza et de l'amour, pp. 116-124; Idem, L'affectivité en l'éducation, Ibid., pp.
233-254.