to allow anything which might interrupt the continuity of oratorian educational activity, so much so that oratorian activity went on, in one way or another, the whole week long. This was Don Bosco's praxis and theory:
The entire Sunday was dedicated to taking care of my youngsters. During the week I used
to call on them at their work, in their workshops, in their factories... This proved to be of
the great comfort to the youngsters since they were seeing a friend who was concerned
about them. This also pleased employers who willingly kept youngsters on who were
assisted during the entire week and even more on weekends when they were more exposed
to dangers.
Every Saturday I used visit the prisons with my pockets full of either tobacco or fruit, sometimes small loaves of bread and always with the objective of taking care of the youngsters who had had the misfortune to end up in prison, with a view to helping them, making them my friends and once they were so moved of inviting them to the Oratory as soon as they had the chance to get out of that place of punishment.1265
Furthermore, the oratory was for everyone, namely for anyone who wanted to use his free time and
wanted to use it constructively. If there was a preference i t was for those most in need both materially and spiritually.
However, those who are poor, the most abandoned ones and the most ignorant, these are
preferably accepted and taken care of because they have the greatest need to be helped so
that they may kee p on the way to eternal salvation.
1266
In fact, the oratory's first objective was that of holding on to the young most abandoned and at risk, as
Don Bosco says in the Memoirs of the Oratory.1267
The deliberations of the last two General Chapters presided by Don Bosco, contain the following decisions:
To achieve the main goal of the Salesian Society more effectively, which is that of
gathering together poor and abandoned youths particularly at weekends, it would be most
beneficial a recreation park, an oratory in cities and towns where there is a Salesian House,
for outside youngsters who need religious instruction and are exposed to the risk of
perversion.
1268
Differently from hospices and boarding schools the oratory on principle excluded any systematic
procedure o f accepting, classifying, admitting or dismissing youngsters, except in very rare cases
which called for expulsion. The oratory stands out as the most dynamic and unpredictable of the youth
gatherings planned and implemented by Don Bosco.
The binding eleme nts of the oratory were essentially the interest, attention, adequacy which it was in a
position to express regarding religious awareness, moral commitment, culture, free participation, and
the solidarity of friendship and shared responsibility, a climate of freedom, love and joy.
More than any other institution, the oratory aimed at being a centre of youthful vitality and liveliness,
1265 MO (1991) 125
1266 Regolamento dell'Oratorio...per gli esterni, part II, Cap II, art. 2, p. 29, OE XXIX 59.
1267 MO (1991) 133.
1268 Deliberazioni del terzo e quarto capitolo generale della Pia Società Salesiana tenuti in Valsalice nel settembre
1883-86. S. Benigno Canavese, Salesian Press 1887. p. 22, OE XXXVI 274. They are similar expressions tot he ones
found in the circular of 20 December 1851: “those youth who through parental neglect or bad companions, or lack of
means are exposed to constant danger of corruption”, “lazy and ill-advised youth” (Em 1139)..