It is natural then, that Don Bosco should speak of the 'repressive system' as an easy and less difficult system.

Instead the preventive system according to Don Bosco, “for the pupils it is easier, more satisfactory and advantageous. To the teacher it certainly does present some difficulties, which however can be diminished if he applies himself to the task with zeal. An educator is one who is consecrated to the welfare of his pupils”.1034

In conclusion, the educators are expected to be well endowed with human, religious and emotional values; they are expected to be the very models, the witnesses and the communicators of these values, through their life, with their words and deeds. This means they need boundless energy, but it also means a benevolent and enveloping ‘siege’ which pupils can hardly resist.

2. This threefold foundation has a relational unity

Reason, Religion and Loving kindness are not simply juxtaposed; they are interrelated; rather, they co- penetrate one another. This occurs not only at the level of objectives and content but also means and methods.

At the first level, they are an original synthesis of all the elements needed for the complete

development of a boy: the physical, intellectual, moral and social elements and the religious-emotional elements as well. At the methodological level, they set in motion a systematic whole, actions suited to involving the young person in all of his most significant potential: mind, heart, will, faith. All this potential is interrelated.

The serious nature of moral and religious commitment implying duty, piety, living in the state of grace, keeping far from sin, is proposed and championed on the basis of relationships and processes which are reasonable and kind.

On the other hand, the gentleness linked with loving kindness doesnot mean weakness and

sentimentalism, a clumsy sort of sensitivity, but emotional co-involvement, constantly enlightened and purified by reason and faith.

In turn, the balance, moderation, reasonableness of rules and interpersonal relationships are constantly motivated and integrated through religious piety and the empathic participation of the educator who is actively present.

Furthermore if, on a methodological level, we should want to determine which of the three elements is the most important, there is no doubt that loving kindness holds prime of place. Naturally, by loving kindness we mean all the connotations of meekness, gentleness, charity, patience and affection. Loving kindness is the supreme principle, the soul of the preventive 'method', just as religion is indisputably the first principle and soul of the system, taken as a complex of goals, content, means and methods. There is a consensus among scholars on the centrality of educative love. This educative love stands for intelligent charity, loving dedication;1035 it is the sway of a father who “holds the heart of his children in his hands”; it stands for “com-penetration of souls”.1036

Mario Casotti, a Catholic pedagogue1037, defined it as “the method of love”. German Salesian Nicholà Endres singled outlove as the foundational factor of the method and saw it as a fundamental relationship between the educator and the person to be educated, a creative, exemplary force and an

1034 Il sistema preventivo (1877). pp. 46, 60 OE XXVIII 424, 438.

1035 V.G. Galati, San Giovanni Boco. Il sistema preventivo. Milano-Varese. Educational Institute Cisalpino 1943, p.

152.

1036 A. Aufray,La pedagogia di S. Giovanni Bosco. Turin, SEI 1942, pp 83-84.

1037 G. Bosco, Il metodo preventivo. Con testimonianze e altri scritti educativi inediti. Introduction and notes by Mario

Casotti, Brescia, La Scuola 1958, pp. 49-59.