Chapter 5
People involved with the preventive system who were close to Don Bosco
Don Bosco is no isolated figure in history and much less so in the 19th century. The preventive system he employed, which he spoke of and wrote about, came to the fore in a historical context where similar directions were being followed, written up and proposed by others, men and women often neighbours in geographical terms who, in some instances, had an impact or might have had an impact on him. This was due either to the fact that Don Bosco had read some of their writings or that he somehow came to know about them.
We are dealing here with people and institutions sharing with Don Bosco the same anxious concerns about young people in times that were both new and difficult. We are dealing with people who undertook similar kinds of initiatives on behalf of young people with a mindset and language revealing a definite meeting of minds in reference to an educational style which we can legitimately call 'preventive'.
We will also keep in mind institutions which, though linked with earlier centuries, were still operating in Don Bosco's times and with which Don Bosco did have contact. We mean, in particular, the Institutions of the De La Salle Brothers and the Barnabites.
l. The Cavanis brothers
Venice, which belonged to the Lombard-Venetian kingdom from 1797 to 1866 and was assigned to the Hapsburgs of Vienna, was the place where two brothers were at work, both priests and members of the noble class during the first decade of the 19th century. They were Antonio Angelo Cavanis (1772-1858) and Marco Antonio Cavanis (1774-1853).288
The two were the founders of a Marian Congregation (1802) which developed from an Oratory and in “charity schools” for poor and abandoned youth. The first school went back to 1804. Later on, the two brothers extended their work to Possignano (near the city of Treviso) and to Lendinara (near the city of Rovigo).
To guarantee the continuity of the schools the Cavanis Brothers founded the Congregation of the Clerics Secular of the Schools of Charity, which were approved by the Patriarch of Venice in l819 and canonically approved by Pope Gregory XVI in l836. The Schools of Charity offered free elementary and secondary school instruction, with religious formation, assistance and recreational activities as well as prevention from physical and moral dangers.
Fatherly familiarity may be considered the core of their educational method characterised by constant vigilance and continuous loving supervision and a kindly discipline with a view to bringing about a vital educational blend of religion and human values. Some fundamental rules taken from the Constitutions of this religious Society fit in nicely with the above and lead to an authentic educational spirituality.
The institution wholeheartedly welcomes children and adolescents with fatherly love; it
educates them gratis; it defends them from being contaminated by the world, and spares no
288 Cf. A.A. and M.A.Cavanis, Epistolario e memorie 1779-1853, ed. A Servini, 5 vols. (Rome: Postulazione Generale
1985-1988); F.S. Zanon, I servi di Dio P. Anton’Angelo e P. Marcantonio fratelli conti Cavanis. Storia documentata
della loro vita, 2 vols. (Venice, 1925); and by the same author, Padri Educatori. La pedagogia dei Servi di Dio P.
Anton’Angelo e P. Marcantonio fratelli conti Cavanis, (Venice 1950); V. Biloni, “Le libere scuole dei Fratelli Cavanis”,
in Pedagogia e Vita 1952-1953: 397-408; G. De Rosa, “I fratelli Cavanis e la società religiosa veneziana nel clima della
Restaurazione” Ricerche di Storia sociale e religiosa 4, July-December 1973: 165-186.