of the learner is the indispensable inner disposition for it.
Don Bosco frequently commented on a biblical reference in his Good Nights and included it in the Rules for the houses.
Let him who has no fear of God quit studying, because he works in vain. Knowledge will
never enter the wicked soul, neither will it live in a body enslaved to sin.... The beginning
of wisdom is the fear of God.1308
The teacher “will do his best to draw moral lessons from sacred and secular classical texts when the subject matter gives occasion to do so, but only with a few words and without much fuss. Once a week, they should have a lesson on Latin texts taken from a Christian author”.1309
In this light, given debate over the question of whether to include Latin and Greek classical authors in the classroom Don Bosco could not, in practice, followthe stricter thesis championed in France by Father Gaume against Dupanloup, on account of the iron-clad demands of state-imposed programs, but at the same time he deplored the consequences of a scholastic education which had become pagan because of this.1310
As he confidentially told a lawyer from Nice (France), he favoured the introduction of (Christian) Latin
authors into his schools. The director -general of Salesian schools at the time, who championed
Gaume's viewpoint, made reference to the point:
This ed ucation, based entirely on pagan classical authors, saturated with exclusively pagan
maxims and sayings dished out in a pagan manner, will absolutely never form true
Christians, especially in our days when the school is everything. It saddens me. I have
fo ught all of my life, followed Don Bosco vigorously against this type of perverse
education which ruins the minds and the hearts of the young during the best years of their
life. It has always been my ideal goal to reform the school and to put it on a truly Christian
basis. It is with this in mind that I undertook the printing and editing, revision and
correction of secular classic Latin authors mostly used in our schools. I have begun
publishing classic Christian Latin authors. I consider these authors, the holiness of their
doctrine and their examples rendered more beautiful by their elegant and at the same time
robust style, would provide what was missing in the secular authors, which are mostly the
product of reason alone. My hope has been that they can n ullified the destructive effects of
pagan materialism and give due honour to what Christianity has also produced in the field
of literature.
1311
We should also remark that, from a teaching point of view Don Bosco gives preference to traditional
approaches bec ause of their family -oriented traits. Some of Don Bosco's recommendations on how
teachers should conduct themselves are well known: esteem for the textbook, faithfully explained; the
students should be questioned on it; they should keep in mind the intelle ctual average of the students in the classroom; they should make use of literary academic entertainment and theatrical performance of a
humanistic nature; they should use dialogue in their teaching.
More binding force was given by Don Bosco to some regulat ory matters:
4. The most backward students should be the main concern of the teachers; they should be
encouraged and never humiliated.
1308 Regolamento per le case..., p.
1309 Regolamento per le case..., p.
1310
1311 F. Cerrutti, Le idee di D. Bosco sull'educazione e sull'insegnamento e la mission attuale della scuola. Lettere due.
S. Benigno Canavese Salesian Press and Bookshop 1886, pp. 4-5.