1. What stands out, at the outset, is the personality of a great educator who musters within himself all the anxieties of so many others who have dedicated themselves to the salvation of the young in the same century in their clearly preventive intention, mentality, means and methods. What links them is their passion for the salvation (in its broadest sense) of the young, which Don Bosco expressed in singular breadth of perspectives and projects.1378Everyone is included in these perspectives, but particular predilection is shown towards the young and, among the young, towards those more at risk: from East to West, from North to South, from Valparaiso, Chile,to Peking, China, from Europe to Africa and Australia.
Don Bosco brings a steadfast, eminently Catholic conviction, that “Faith without works is dead”, that charity and good deeds are the only sure way to witness the truth of God's love. The educator's work is a continuous process of invention, or better, the ability to grasp, with practical intuitions, the right moment, the suitable place for acting. The preventive system formulated by Don Bosco in his 1877 treatise, but lived and practised before that, is one of these unexpected but surprising and timely educational works, emerging during the time of his religious maturity. The preventive system is the masterpiece of a craftsman, an artist, architect and builder: Don Bosco. And like any true artist, he shows the difference between what is imagined and planned and what is actually implemented and expressed.
2. For this reason, 'what is expressed', even with its limitations, is something extra-rich, something which those who practise it can read and re-interpret in the present and in the future; they are able to appreciate it and bend it to suit new demands for action. It is enough not to move too far from the great ideas which inform it, some of which are rooted in the faith, and others in the daily theatreof life: “The greater glory of God and the salvation of souls”; “A keen faith, steadfast hope and ardent charity”; “A good Christian and upright citizen”; “cheerfulness, study and piety”; the three SSSs; the five SSSSSs; “evangelisation and civilisation”.
Nor must we overlook the great methodological orientations: “Make yourself loved before making yourself feared” or “if you want to make yourself feared”, “rather than making yourself feared”; “Reason, religion and loving kindness”; “fathers, brothers, friends”; “familiarity, especially during recreation time”; “to win over the heart”; “an educator is a person consecrated to the good of his pupils”; “ample freedom to jump around, to run and shout as much as they wish”.
3. But if we want Don Bosco's experiences, ideas and system not to end up being merely a jealously guarded heritage but form the actual beginning of a real educational innovation for the new youth and for new and deeply changed times, then they have to be studied in-depth; they have to be thought out again, integrated, updated theoretically and practically.
Don Bosco's preventive system was came into being and was formulated within a limited world, centred mostly on the experience of the oratory at Valdocco, Turin, even though it was proposed for a variety of situations far and wide. Today this system is called upon to meet the challenge of the world of the young which even from a quantitative point of view presents problems that cannot in any way be compared with those of the 19th century. Among the more outstanding problems the following four could be singled out:
1. The unlimited extension of 'youth' when compared with 'youth' of the 19th century, even simply
in demographic terms;
2. The extended age range of youth from the brief childhood of thepast, 1-6/7 years of age, to
something which might include the first 25/30 years of life;
3. The countless variety of circumstances the young find themselves in. Following the criteria
used in Don Bosco's times, not only economic, social and cultural, but also moral and religious,
1378 See what was proposed in Chap. 8.