5. The teachers should quiz everyone, without distinction and frequently. Let them show great esteem and affection towards all of their pupils especially towards those who are intellectually slow. Let the teachers avoid the bad habit of some who entirely give up on those students who are negligent and slow to learn.1312
4.2 The working boys and their formation
The technical andprofessional school for working boys deserves some mention. This type of school is less relevant from a pedagogical and didactic point of view than it is from a social and welfare perspective, since it expanded in an extraordinary way the world over.1313
Thi s line of work began when Don Bosco opened up his humble hospice. This hospice provided food,
shelter and social assistance to a limited group of boys who were employed by artisans in the city. They
often had a guaranteed regular contract, and were surroun ded by educational concern and care. We find
the gradual organisation of the workshops taking place in the Oratory during the period 1853 -1862. The workshops were opened for moral, religious, educational and economic reasons: tailors and
shoemakers in 18 53; bookbinders in 1854; carpenters in 1856; printers in 1861; blacksmiths in 1862. In
July 1878, two agricultural schools were opened up for boys and girls at La Navarre and at Saint Cyr,
France.
The technical professional schools, besides having the abov e-mentioned religious and moral objectives,
also took on important social, technical and professional aspects of sufficient value to create a formula
for craft which admits a relative amount of culture but is especially practically oriented.
“After all”, Don Bosco declared openly in 1881, “I do not want my children to be walking
encyclopedias; I do not want my carpenters and blacksmiths and shoemakers to be lawyers; I do not want my printers, bookbinders and booksellers to act as though they were philosophers and
theologians... For me it is enough that they are competent in what belongs to their trade. And when an artisan possesses the knowledge which is useful and appropriate for his skilled work then I say that this kind of individual is learned enough to render service to society and religion and has the right to be respected as much as can be”.1314
The last official stage in the evolution of the technical schools which Don Bosco witnessed is indicated by a well drawn up document already developed at the Third General Chapter of 1883 and later on finalised and approved at the Fourth General Chapter of 1886.
The two General Chapters had included among the topics to be studied: “directions to be given to the working sector of the Salesian houses and the means needed to develop vocations among the young artisans”.
It is in the these Chapters that we find the orientations and norms used as the basis for the
developments to be followed later on within Salesian professional schools. Until then the professional
1312 Regolamento per le case..., part I, Chap VI, pp. 33-34, OE XXIX 129-130. The idea was also familiar to Ferrante
Aporti.. The teacher should reach out to everyone, the sick, the mediocre, the more capable. “A teacher's attitude should
not be measured by having helped the learned ones but by helping those of any ability; the expert farmer is not the one
who gets results from fertile ground but who can make sterile ground more fertile” (Elementi di pedagogia..., in F.
Aporti Scritti pedagogici, vol II, pp. 87-88.
1313 Cf. P. Stella, Don Bosco nella storia economica e sociale..., pp. 243-258 (I laboratori di arti e mestieri); L.
Pazzaglia, Apprendistato e istruzione degli artigiani a Valdocco (1886-1846), in F. Traniello (Ed.), Don Bosco nell
storia della cultura popolare..., pp. 13-80; D. Veneruso, Il metodo educativo di san Giovanni Bosco alla prova. Dai
laboratori agli istituti professionali, in P. Braido (Ed), Don Bosco nella Chiesa..., pp. 133-142; J.M. Prellezzo, Don
Bosco e le scuole professionali (1870-1887), in M. Midali (Ed.), Don Bosco nella storia..., pp. 331-353.
1314 BS 5 (1881), no. 8 August, p. 16