Chapter 11
Educating the “good Christian and upright citizen” according to the “needs of the
times”
Don Bosco's educational system, just like the whole of his pastoral activity and spirituality, does not demonstrate the radical aspect displayed by other modern prophets of education. Don Bosco does not aim at creating the 'new man' as Rousseau and Makarenko815 did in different eras and with different
perspectives.
But neither does Don B osco indulge in accepting a pure return to the o ld man, the man of the Christian and civil tradition of the ancien régime, with the intention of restoring things to the past. Don Bosco thought out and carried out his own educational work to achieve both old and new objectives: to lead the young to accept and shape themselves both in fidelity to the perennial newness of Christianity and their ability to be part of a society freed from its worst connections to the ancien régime and looking forward to new conquests. This is the way Don Bosco was understood by his contemporaries even though they expressed their understanding in different ways. The aim of this chapter is to spell out the essential features of the persons Don Bosco wants to form.
1. Theoretical and practical view of educational goals
The educational goals proposed and followed by Don Bosco, are not the end-result of a general, systematic theory of education, however, they are defined within an experience that was not merely a pragmatic one.
Cultural elements are evidently a part of it: the faith he lived by, from his childhood on and which he expressed in prayer, teaching catechism, taking part in church services; the humanist formation he had received during his youth; his philosophic and theological studies, his moral and pastoral formation, and his historical, apologetic and spiritual reading.
Additional elements, and no less influential, are Don Bosco's contacts with the world of poverty and needs, not only at the spiritual level but also on the huge and pressing material level. As life and the Our Father had taught him, the daily bread asked for stood for faith, grace, Christ, the Eucharist, as well as the means of a livelihood and the work to earn it. All these things together.
Don Bosco does not offer us a well developed and reflective view of the goals of education within a wider humanistic and Christian world view and a life philosophically and theologically structured. But he always has it there in mind and in practice. This was demanded of him by the culture he had acquired, his temperament, his sensitiveness and the impact the young had on him, since they needed everything. A catechetical and religious answer alone was not enough for real questions.
Don Bosco tells us about it throughvarious historical recollections: The historical outline (Cenno storico), The historical outlines (Cenni storici), the Preface to the Constitutions (of the Salesian Society), the various historical notes with which he prefaced material sent to ecclesiastical and civil authorities,' The Memoirs of the Oratory, the countless individual and circular letters, his talks and conferences aimed at soliciting financial help, charitable contributions and support.
Naturally, since Don Bosco never achieved a compact and organised theoretical overview of his educational system, the various elements which made it up in practice and were employed on a daily
815This is the meaning of Émile (1762) Rousseau's anthropological revolution, as happily illustrated by A. Ravier,
L'éducation de l'Homme nouveau, Paris. SPES 1944, and M. Rang, Rousseaus Lehre vom Menschen, Göttingen,
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1959; of the inizio assoluto, “creating the new man”, the Soviet collectivist, described by
A.S. Marenko, Poema pedagogico (1935) and Bandiere sulle torri (1938).