Chapter 2

Better to prevent than repress

After the unforeseen and traumatic experience of the French Revolution followed by the more or less radical overthrow of the old order resulting from Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) Europe seemed more than ever before obsessed with the idea of 'prevention'. It was accompanied by variously nuanced ‘Restoration’ plans depending on one or other mindset or culture.

Various classes of conservatives, reactionaries too, took restoration and prevention to be something based on fear and with more than a hint of repression. The fear was of new revolutionaries, sects, secret societies, liberalism, (standing for freedom of the press, association and worship). There was also an aura of mistrust regarding new educational experiences thought to be subversive. Even new methods of teaching, reciprocal teaching, schools for the working class, kindergartens connected with De Maistre, Monaldo Leopardi, Clement Solaro della Margherita, were looked upon as a threat to the principle of authority, because they aimed at training people to use their reasoning power alone and be independent of family and Church. The accent was on strict vigilance, preventive censure, providing ‘missions for the masses’, in order to win them back and offer them moral standards through religion and prevention of idleness and licentiousness.

Among the moderates or the broadminded, there was instead a tendency to reclaim what was considered valid from the old order, such as instruction, religious practices, traditional moral values, but also a tendency to accept new contributions such as the spreading of the ‘light’ of knowledge, the gradual expansion of primary schools and technical schools for the working classes, the re-evaluation of work and social solidarity, the adoption of more just, more humane methods, as part of the process of confronting the chronic social diseases of poverty and delinquency, the development of charitable undertakings and mutual social assistance, the spreading of good books, the creation of popular libraries and so forth.

In this context, we notice a more systematic affirmation of the ‘preventive principle’, to the point where it was translated explicitly into the term ‘preventive system’ which would then become a historical fact at a later stage.

This term bears the distinctive marks of the century. In fact, though with different emphasis, the term grew up within the climate of the Restoration, reflected its features and the multi-hued aspects of the different groups. It could be espoused by those who were nostalgic for the ancien régime and by the Legitimists, fully aware though they may have been of the impossibility of a simple return to the past; it could likewise be espoused by moderates well-disposed to what was new and open, to some extent, to modernity, as also by those who had more courageous projects in mind. Laurentie, Pavoni, Champagnat, Aporti, Rosmini, Dupanloup, Don Bosco and many others might legitimately be associated, at least generically, with the ‘preventive system’. However, real circumstances, different mindsets, different objectives, availability gave different nuances to the same visions or basic experiences and offered some remarkably different features.

This is the same kind of ambiguity or ambivalence related to the ‘restlessness for prevention’ which seemed to pervade the entire century at different times and from different points of view. Don Bosco appeared to be in agreement with it on cultural, political, pastoral and educational levels, but in a more moderate form. He made this evident both in his Storia ecclesiastica, l845 (Church History) and La Storia d’Italia ,l855 (The History of Italy.

Q: who began the French Revolution? A: the secret societies, some fanatics called ‘illuminati’ or The Enlightened, who had joined some philosophers pretending to be able to