keeping them busy, doing what was appropriate at their age.473
It is within his family that Don Bosco, thanks to his mother's guidance, acquired the habit of prayer, of performing his religious duties, of making sacrifices and, in due time, by the time he reached the age of reason, the habit of regularly going to confession. He was also encouraged to read and write. Don Bosco had to wait until he was eleven years old to be admitted to First Communion (Easter l827).474. Don Bosco’s personality was strongly influenced and moulded by religion, and by hard work in the family fields and in his neighbours’ fields. While he carried out this work with great determination and out of obedience to his mother, he remained determined to dedicate himself to reading and writing.475 As recorded in The Memoirs of the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales Don Bosco attributed great importance to his meeting with Fr John Calosso, who, for less than two years, worked as a priest in the Village of Murialdo (1829-1830). Many years later, Don Bosco refers with great clarity to the feelings he had at the age of fifteen.476
However Don Bosco's recreational activities naturally played a significant part in his formation. His mother encouraged his involvement in games and outdoor pursuits. His interest in games, in looking for bird’s nests and his attempts to be an acrobat all prepared him for his involvement in La società dell’allegria (The Happy Company) of later years, during Don Bosco's studies at Chieri. His heavy involvement in recreational activities as a young man also accounts for the wide range of activities he assigned to free time in his preventive educative system.477
2. Early schooling
Don Bosco's first regular elementary education took place at Castelnuovo: from Christmas 1830 to the summer of 1831, and at Chieri, where he attended the classes of grammar, of the humanities and of rhetoric, from 1831 to 1835.
As a preparation for his future, this period is important. The young farmer met the new and exhilarating world of Latin culture in the context of a classical education. The effect of this on Don Bosco was to open his mind to an appreciation of culture, which will prove invaluable in his future work as an educator and as a promoter of vocations.
But the most influential feature in the life of Don Bosco, as he was growing up, was the reality of finding himself deeply immersed into a holistic, formative structure, which is at the same time cultural, ethical and religious. We referred earlier to Don Bosco's preventive repressive kind of soul: it left a deep mark on Don Bosco's mentality. Evidently, this mentality was compensated for by later experiences, which in turn leave indelible marks in the organization of his future educational undertakings for students and especially within schools and boarding institutions. 478 This becomes evident not only from the analysis of the text, but also from the clear recollections of his religious experiences as recorded in the Memoirs of the Oratory.479
473 MO (1991): 33-34.
474 Ibid., 34, 42-44.
475 Ibid., 48-50. A substantially credible reconstruction can be found in the biography compiled by G.B. Lemoyne,Scene
morali di famiglie esposte nell vita di Margherita Bosco. Racconto edificante ed ameno, (Turin: tip. E libreria
Salesiana, 1886), 7-188 pages, and in the essay by E. Valentini, Il sistema preventivo nella vita di Mamma Margherita,
(Turin: LDC, 1957), 146.
476 MO (1991), 45-51. “I put myself in Don Calosso’s hands….Every word, thought, action I promptly showed him…I
knew then what it means to have a stable guide, a faithful soul friend, which I had lacked up until then”. (47) 477 Ibid., 38-42, 76-82.
478 This is a notable element, though not the only one, of the specific Jesuit influence, since its members and pedagogy go
back to the Regulations of Charles Felix 23 July 1822, as said, which shaped the school of the Sardinian Kingdom,
including the Sunday gatherings of students, which the Festive Oratory of Don Bosco’s is partly connected with. 479 MO (1991), 56-58, 63-64.