explicit reference to St Francis de Sales, his theology of love, refined by the intentions, activity, dreams and proposals of Don Bosco, in a word, by his the life-style and action.
7. From social support concerned with basic needs to educational support
Even though welfare, social support is not the specific subject of the present study, within the concrete experience of Don Bosco's preventive system, in addition to his use of the term 'assistance' in an educational context, the term also finds its place [in its Italian meaning of 'welfare or social action'] in the aid offered to “poor and abandoned” boys.
The first pressing concern that Don Bosco had as his interest in the young began to take shape, and what remained a concern for him to the end of his days, was that of providing for the material needs of his boys first of all.
The 'salvation' of the young at all levels, religious, moral and cultural, was always preceded and accompanied by a commitment to ensuring the means for subsistence, housing, meals, clothing, equipment for schools and work-shops. This is true especially of Don Bosco's poorest institutions: hospices, orphanages, and the oratories in the slum areas of the city.
The two dimensions, one social humanitarian and the other educative and re-educative, both moral and religious, are constantly and practically considered to be inter-related. According to Don Bosco's Catholic mindset, though, real or potential delinquency was associated with a lack of religious foundations. Religious indifference, poor Christian practice were considered as both cause and symptom of a certain moral corruption and as an inevitable risk for society.
The contribution of material help and the education ended up being necessarily integrated. Don Bosco made this integration evident in private letters, circular letters, appeals, sermons aimed at collecting funds and especially through his works.
The preventive system is both a welfare system, a social system and a system for a moral and religious education.1076
Assistance plays a key methodological role in educational activity, so much so, that in the preventive
system being an 'educator' and an 'assistant' are one and the same thing. Therefore it is evident that the
type of assistance practised and proposed by Don Bosco s hould not be understood only within the
perspective of what he wrote in 1877 and the document which refers to a highly structured setting
much like the colleges/boarding schools and hospices, which were expected to see to the entire life of
the young for a long period of time.
The experiences Don Bosco had, his writings and talks, lead us to understand 'assistance' in a broad and
flexible way. This is true, for example, for assistance in schools for day boys, oratories, youth ministry
activities, even other activities related to printing, publishing and bookstores.
On the level of behaviour such a fundamental inspiration leads to some immediate consequences which
completely involves the one who practises the preventive system, wherever it may be employed. So me texts give us some idea of this, even though it would be more significant to refer to the lived experience
that Don Bosco wanted. The contents of his 'definition of the preventive system’ in the 1877 text are fundamental for us to know: rectors and assistants are always to be among their pupils, talking to them, guiding them, advising and correcting them.1077
Assistance is not policing nor is it about hand -outs, but is a friendly presence, a presence which
promotes and gives life to the entire activity of the individual we want to help. Assistance is usually
carried out in very different ways in an oratory, a boarding institution, the classroom, a group, at work.
1076 Cf. P. Braido, «Poveri e abbandontai, pericolanti e pericolosi»: pedagogia, assistenza, socialità nell'«esperienza
preventiva» di don Bosco, in «Annali di storia dell'educazione e delle istituzioni scolastiche» 3 (1996) 183-236. 1077 Il sistema preventivo (1877). p. 46, OE XXVIII 424.