All in all, in Venice anything to do with this twofold act of charity directed at prevention rather permission for evils to be suffered and then cured, is and will always be for me and for those who aim at doing good, a constant cause of due admiration. Therefore may this honorable commission accept the most sincere expression of the congratulations I have the honor to convey. For up to now, the commission has carried out the difficult undertaking of reforming and re-organizing the education of the poor wonderfully. This action is the only means good enough to redeem the poor from the abjection of ignorance, from sloth and from the vices necessarily connected with them. This is the way they can provide an inestimable good for the Catholic Church and for the state.67
This idea was fully shared by Petitti of Roreto:
Those who are involved in the education of children, with the so-called kindergarten, and in
the education of adolescents, in orphanages, both temporary and permanent … are the
ones who safeguard them in their tenderest age and protect them from many physical and
moral dangers; they are the ones who provide them with the opportunity to learn a skill
which will guarantee their future existence…
The shelter- houses provided for young people … can successfully lead these young people by a means of persuasion, firmness and paternal exhortations to again follow good principles and thus prevent society from being harmed by some of them.
The houses for workshops and shelter… provide the means to earn an honorable livelihood.68
The idea of prevention is again used in reference to the rules for the Educatori della prima infanzia e dell’adolescenza (educative institutions for early childhood and adolescence). Furthermore it is appropriate that poor children receive a religious and moral, literary and artistic education. The reason for this is the ignorance and the lack of far-sightedness that their parents have, the lack of suitable means, at times even the parents ill will, which will perhaps, allow children and adolescents to be completely uneducated and bent towards immoral and bad behavior and worse which might follow.69
The proposal to educate the masses in order to properly meet their needs, and prevent criminality, takes up more space in the already cited publication, Della condizione attuale delle carceri:. Educarlo, asssuefarlo ad essere previdente, e soccorrerlo quando e’ nel bisogno (Regarding jails at the moment: you must educate the prisoner, get him used to foresight and help him when he needs it) .
The kindergarten program, the primary and elementary schools, the agricultural school, arts and crafts schools, can reach their goal and all governments should truly have the intention of promoting them, fostering them, protecting them, if they really want the improvement of the population entrusted to their care.
However, instruction alone is not enough to reach this goal: it must be accompanied by a
67 Letter from July.August 1842, in A. Gambero, as cited . 2, 378-379. “Once I saw the universal deficiency of education
at home, the great source of vices defiling and debasing us, and I saw that nobody was doing anything about it, I set out
to provide a remedy” (Letter to Giovanni Rebasti di Piacenza, 21 March 1841, Ibid, p. 445).
68 C.I: Petitti di Roreto, Saggio, I, 139-140.
69 ibid, I, 225.