discipline and study method.889 The means range from fear of God to good eating habits. Faith and
reason, morality and hygiene, devotion and common sense are all nicely blended together to attain
happiness and what is good.
The pedago gy of duty and work is substantially part of the entire life of an educational institution, with
its continuous succession of various occupations and moments of recreation, tight rhythm of activities
in the classroom, workshops and study halls, with eagern ess to achieve one's best, emulating others, all the while accompanied by the example and energy of the educators.
This is the characteristic of Salesian religious and Don Bosco is proud of it!
Do we not hear it repeated every day to the four winds: work, instruction, humanity? Lo
and behold... In many cities the Salesians are opening workshops of all kinds, agricultural
schools in the countryside to train young people to work in the fields; the y found boarding
schools for boys and girls, day schools as well as evening and Sunday schools, oratories
with recreation on Sundays to refine young men’s minds and enrich them with useful
knowledge; for hundreds and thousands of orphans and abandoned children they open up
hospices, orphanages and welfare institutes, bringing the light of the Gospel and
civilisation to the very barbarians of Patagonia, doing their best so that humanity may not
only be just a word but a reality.890
3.Prime of place for religious education
Cultivating the religious dimension, instilling the fear of God in the young, educating them to live habitually in the state of grace: all this constitutes the objective of the complex of Christian practices of piety which find its inspiration in tradition and the personal experience which characterises the life of every “house”.
It is absolutely self evident that for Don Bosco religion that is put into practice is the main goal of an authentic education. This is what Don Bosco tells a group of past pupils who had achieved such a goal, thanks to the education received at the Oratory. Don Bosco goes back to this and insists upon it:
Wherever you may be, always show yourselves to be good Christians and upright men.
Love, respect, put into practice our holy religion, the religion with which I educated you
and with which I kept you away from the dangers and corruption of the world; the religion
which brings us comfort in the sufferings of our life, gives us strength when we face the
clutches of death and opens for us the gates of boundless happiness.891
This 'boundless happiness'and 'eternal salvation', as a matter of fact, are constantly placed before the eyes of the young as an ongoing stimulus to reflection and commitment. With eyes fixed on that goal, the young person is invited in several ways, through words, readings, stories and 'dreams', to subordinate every other activity to this one and consider “the salvation of one's soul”, as the dominant idea of spiritual life.892
This the central point of Don Bosco's entire educational approach. “Salvation is the fruit of redemption wrought by Jesus Christ and stands for 'freedom from sin' and life of grace; it stands for adoptive sonship, friendship with God, in a word, it stands for holiness.
889G.B. Lemoyne, Cronaca 1864ff, p. 22, 23, 25, 26, 31, 37, 38, 53; cf. Also G. Berto, Raccolta di detti, fatti e sogni di d.
Bosco, goodnight 11 Sept. 1867, pp. 60-61.
890Conference to Cooperators at S. Benigno Canavese, 4 June 1880, BS 4 (1880) no. 7, July p. 12.
891Address 24 June 1880 BS 4 (1880) no. 9 Sept., p. 10.
892Cf. P. Stella, Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica, Vol II, chap IV Storia e Salvezza, pp. 59-100; Idem, Don
Bosco e le trasformazioni sociali e religiose del suo tempo, in La famiglia salesiana riflette sulla vocazione nella
Chiesa di oggi. Turin-Leumann, Elle Di CI 1973, pp. 159-162, Da mihi animas, cetera tolle.