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04-januarydbstudyguide2012

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JANUARY 2012
Getting to Know...
Don Bosco
His Place in History
According to
Don Bosco
As a man of his times, Don Bosco
operated from a set of very precise
understandings of God. He had a
keen awareness of humanity
respecting its great capacity while
respecting and attending to its
fragility. He was consumed by those
conditions which could so easily pull a
soul from the great mercy and love of
God brooking no compromise with
corruption and sin. His efforts to
transform those conditions and draw
attention to the issues that affected the
quality of life for the young gave Don
Bosco a particular view of work. He
saw it as both the result of corruption
and as a means of liberating service.
In this issue, a comparison will be
offered between the Founder and a
famous author and social critic
contemporary to Don Bosco, Charles
Dickens. This author, like Don
Bosco, alerted his age to the plight of
the young lost in poverty and
corruption in fast-changing world.
The late Fr. Pietro Stella devoted much of his life uncovering cultural and
literary treasures from Don Bosco’s period of history culling insights into
the world in which he lived, out of which Don Bosco operated, and into
which he made his own unique contribution.
Examining Don Bosco’s
Understanding
This issue of the Don Bosco Study Guide continues to look at
the person of Don Bosco. We begin with reflections written by
the great Salesian historian Fr. Pietro Stella. Fr. Stella gave us
a critical historical analysis of Don Bosco from many vantage
points. We will summarize Fr. Stella’s examination of Don
Bosco’s understanding of God, man, and sin. Then we will
make a comparison between Don Bosco and Charles Dickens.
In This Issue: Linking Don Bosco & Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens is loved and revered in the world of literature
especially because of his ability to see the world of the young
person so lost in an industrialized world of poverty and
corruption. His efforts to expose the dangers of the exploitation
and neglect of the young strikes a resonant chord in the Salesian
heart. Don Bosco and Dickens seemed on the same mission.

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Don Bosco’s God
God is the reality into which all things are
immersed and through which Don Bosco
perceived all moments of his life.
Knowledge of God
In a fitting reference to Don Bosco’s motto, Da
mihi animas, caetera tolle, Fr. Stella begins an
examination of Don Bosco’s concept and
understanding of God. He asserts that such a motto
arises from one already in close contact with his God in
his own personal vocation and destiny and in those of
the people around him. In fact, God is the reality into
which all things are immersed and through which Don
Bosco perceived all moments of his life. As a child, the
immediacy of his God stood in stark contrast to many
of the influences of his contemporary world and those
of the recent history preceding Don Bosco with the
growing cynicism and rejection of religious ideas in the
dawn of Enlightenment. This immediacy of God, in
the words of Fr. Stella, “dominated the mind of Don
Bosco as the noonday sun.”
Don Bosco’s concept was obviously rooted in the Scriptures and their assertion that all
things in heaven and earth shout the presence of God. Turning to human existence, Don Bosco
saw revelation in the organization of life and in the unity between souls. His view was of a
“primordial goodness and order,” and agreed with authors who stated
that man had an inner “secret instinct” for God, yet for
which God makes the first initiative. In the relationship
with God as understood by Don Bosco, Fr. Stella points
out that Don Bosco was more concerned about what the
promptings of God are to mankind than to dissect their
nature and origin. In other words, the relationship and the
inner voice are givens in Don Bosco’s religiosity.
God has communicated himself to the world of
humanity and for Don Bosco there were many paths open to
recognize these communications. Knowledge of God comes
from association in the created world, from innate knowledge
in the heart of man, and through the Scriptures as passed
down through the ages. The ambient of Don Bosco’s
perceiving are specifically Christian and a Christianity that is
built on the Hebrew experience of God.
Contrary to the Deism of his day, Don Bosco believed
that God’s existence went deeper than emotion and will to the
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Don Bosco’s Traditionalism
very nature of man: man is uniquely derived
Don Bosco and Traditionalism:
from God and therefore is disposed to the
knowledge of God by virtue of human nature.
Don Bosco taught and evangelized
This God was not a distant force, but the
within a specific cultural and literary milieu.
revelation of an intimate friend. In fact, Don
Most of the Catholic authors contemporary to
Bosco used the most familiar terms to speak of
Don Bosco were responding to a European
God and rarely used words of omnipotence and
crisis of faith, turning toward harsh apologetics
distant power. But this does not diminish his
and fideism. These authors became the
sense of God’s immensity and creative power
antithesis of Enlightenment and Deism, of
sustaining all things in their existence. Yet,
rationalism and positivism. The writings of
Don Bosco’s God was both powerful majestic
Don Bosco reflect some of this traditional
and “our compassionate Father in heaven.”
element through his insistence upon the divine
Into the battles of Jansenism, Deism,
nature of God’s revelations, but he insists that
and other the criticisms hurled at the God of his
God can be known. But traditionalism, as Fr.
age, Don Bosco brought the images of a
Stella insists, had a specific influence on the
merciful God borrowing images from St.
religious outlook of Don Bosco’s century. Such
Alphonsus and other authors. And his aim in
traditionalism, as favored by Don Bosco, saw
presenting such an approachable and majestic
signs of God breaking into the human scene
God was always the call to conversion.
frequently. The extraordinary was, indeed,
available.
God in Don Bosco’s Life
Don Bosco saw the hand of God throughout his life
marveling that God could make use of him!
Don Bosco could often blend deep emotion and
fear with joy. For him, God was humble and merciful
empowering Don Bosco to do whatever he could. Don
Bosco’s response was one of biblical servitude. His
tears at Sacra Cuore demonstrated this deep marveling
at the revelation that God had used Don Bosco as a
powerful and unlikely instrument.
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Understanding Man
As is evident in Don Bosco’s understanding of God, man is a unique
and uniquely blessed creature of God, the very image and likeness of
God second only to the angels in heaven. To be complete, the
human being is both body and soul, but the soul took prominence in
his spirituality, borrowing from favorite spiritual authors. Don
Bosco’s language reflects these influences.
The human soul:
The height of man’s value resides in the soul as the very
breath of God. Even the faculty of thinking in man is a gift
connected to the soul and its great capacity for creativity proves the
existence of God and makes of the soul his signature on the world.
The human soul is immortal and free. Without these two central attributes, man could not
claim to be made in the image of the Creator.
The human body:
The body is the outward expression of the existence of man and is man’s partner until death.
This dependency has its roles and the body is the instrument of the soul and is meant to serve us. But
its place in the hierarchy of spirituality is lower than the soul. It is not a passive reality but one that
needs direction and cooperation. It is not self-possessed and it experience anguish as the soul strives
for perfection. In fact, it is in this understanding that we can see an antithetical strain in Don Bosco’s
conception of the body. This demands decisive battle against the body, but only at the service of
saving one’s soul, not merely as some masochistic
requirement of Christian discipleship.
The human heart
We find the human will at the heart of
man. For Don Bosco, the heart needed to be
unattached to the world, emptied of its promises,
and preserved for God. This was the task of
sanctity. This work on the heart is a joint venture
between God and man. It is the
grace of God, which calls the heart to that
purification. In the end, this boils down to the
central choice left in the hands of man: to choose the
eternal or the temporal, the dedication to God or to
things.
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Understanding Sin
Corruption of the human heart:
Finally, we look at sin as understood by
Don Bosco. For Don Bosco there was
absolutely no middle ground. Sin was totally
rejected. Arising from his view of God and
humanity, sin is always understood as a
deliberate act of rebellion against a loving and
nurturing God. And God sees sin as
ingratitude.
The act of choosing the created over the
Creator, the material over the spiritual, was, for
Don Bosco, the very “brutalizing of man.”
There is evidence of Platonism reaching into
Don Bosco’s concept of sin as he drew upon the
spirituality of Aloysius Gonzaga—a saint
constantly at battle with the body and its
tendencies. Don Bosco borrows the imagery of
man as a slave or a beast.
The imagery in Don Bosco’s dreams
leaves no doubt about this stance against the
horrors of sin. Sin can cloud a boy from his
true purpose and place his soul in danger of
mortal sin and eternal condemnation. Reason
is extinguished and the boy follows the path to
sin like a wild and uncontrollable beast.
Original sin transmitted the
consequences of sin. One of its lasting effects is
the corruption of the human heart and
ignorance. Unbelief, in this model, is not an
accident, but the result of a chain of sinful
choices. Catholicism and true faith are, for
Don Bosco, the only remedy and to reject these,
even in Protestantism, is deadly heresy.
Creatures after sin:
Creation in all its beauty can become
corrupted at the hands of humanity. Good
pleasures may become luring and dangerous
temptations. The promises of heaven and true
happiness can become lost to counterfeits. In
his Companion of Youth Don Bosco quotes St.
Alphonsus in his bold rejection of the world and
all of its promises. We find a strong
comparison between the two saints in this
approach. St. Alphonsus is permeated with
anxiety over the power of sin, but never far
from the source of the soul’s strength.
Don Bosco had a great fear of an
offended God. This lent to his abhorrence of
sin. Fr. Stella suggests that this fear was ever
connected to a theology and his own personal
experience. But pervasive in his theology is the
predilection of the time for the propensity of
man to choose weakness. Thus, we find the
strong insistence upon prevention and active
presence to avoid sin. And personally, Don
Bosco warned the educator that responsibility
for sin committed was also on his soul should
he fail to be vigilant in assistance. The priest,
more than others, would enter into heaven
either with the souls he had saved or lost.
Reflections
I was fourteen when I first heard the dream of Don Bosco in hell. It was read to us as part of a
retreat as I entered into high school. That dream remains with me to this day. It is not an image of a
loving God that I found elsewhere in Don Bosco and it has always been incongruous to me. With the
study of his time and his worldview, it has helped to place this dream within a wider context, but it
still remains a pebble in my shoe. Perhaps I need a bit of Don Bosco’s fear and a taste of his hunger
for eternal things.
One day, I will wrestle this dilemma to the floor. But I tend to walk between Don Bosco’s
abhorrence for sin and the maxim of Fr. John Tickle, an author and biblical scholar form New
Mexico. Fr. Tickle insists that our interpretation of scripture or any other element we might refer to
as spiritual—such as a private revelation, the instruction of a priest, or an interpretation of some
event—must withstand the litmus test of the Good Shepherd. His words spoken at a conference for
the interpretation of the Book of Revelations remain clearly etched on my mind. I will paraphrase this
man whose example and influence I still carry today.
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Don Bosco and the World of Work and the Novel
of Charles Dickens, “Hard Times.”
Silvio Tramontin’s
Treatment: Don Bosco
and the World of Work
1. A Complex context:
Silvio Tramontin decries the work of Gian
Marion Bravo for his scant treatment of Don Bosco
and Joseph Cottolengo in 19th century Piedmont.
Bravo suggests that their movements were fringe
movements which depended upon the aristocracy
and divine providence and therefore incapable of
embracing the whole of society. Brave went further
by suggesting that the followers of Don Bosco and
Don Cottolengo, by applying mere theories of their
ideals, would actually serve as obstacles to social
and intellectual development of the masses. But
Tramontin insists that Don Bosco was an exception
among the socially minded saints of his region by
inserting himself and his work into the mainstream
culture attempting to address the rising problems of
modernism affecting their society.
On the other hand, author Bairati, who
penned a work entitled Salesian Culture and
Industrial Society, recognized in Don Bosco and his
work the “stopping off ground and place of
inculturation” for the mass movement of youth from
the country into the industrialized cities. He
suggested that the Salesian culture stayed close to
many of the changing conditions in society without
losing its own foundations. Organizationally, the
Salesian culture, he maintained, was modern for its
ability to mature the young for this changing world
and help them play an important role in society. But
this was accomplished with and through Christian
love.
2. Don Bosco’s Concept of Work
For Don Bosco work was the means for
earning a living and the consequence of sin. A
lengthy dream over the first two nights in May of
1871 framed within this world-view the means of
salvation: toil, sweat, and continual prayer,
reminiscent of his promises to the Salesian Family of
bread, work, and paradise. His own upbringing and
the story of his own vocation reflected this
experience of work and toil and its use as a means
for sanctification. Don Bosco embraced work of
every kind from his childhood until his death. He
saw ever job as an opportunity to pray and to serve
God. By this, Don Bosco courted a type of
secularity to the extent that there is behind creation a
certain order and goodness. The work of man, his
destiny, has been “enobled by the work of Jesus.”
This is the center of Don Bosco’s theology of
work—an act of co-creation, continuing the work of
God in the world.
Key also to Don Bosco’s view of work was
its capacity to serve others. Merely as a means of
production, work loses its soul. But done in service
and out of love, it becomes the path to one’s
salvation and a positive contribution to society at
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large. This embrace of work included both
intellectual and manual labor. He saw these styles as
complementary.
3. The kinds of work
Don Bosco appealed for help for all three of
his Oratories which he proudly asserted were
positively effecting change in the city of Turin.
While many of these youth could handle all manner
of work both intellectually and manually, there were
still others whose lack of basic needs prevented them
from making a valuable contribution at the outset. It
was for these youth that Don Bosco appealed to his
society and various assistance for these most
desperate youth. This appeal in 1862 reveals his
Oratories at the heart of his project for changing
lives and society through many varying types of
work and training depending upon the means
available.
4. Enterprises for the world of work
The three Oratories already in operation in
Turin by 1847 were Don Bosco’s main focus. Only
about 7 boys were boarded at the Pinardi house at
this stage, but another 700 boys were attending
classes and training in the evenings.
The Oratories can be examined over three
periods of history. The first phase is the early phase
characterized by Don Bosco’s concern to find decent
jobs for the boys. Contracts still exist which show
Don Bosco’s outline for a good work experience,
asking employers to treat the boys with kindness,
fairness, and providing them enough time to pray,
play, and rest. His “Mutual Aid” society was a
structure put in place to help the boys become
members of a sort of labor society with paying dues
reserved to helping them if and when they should
fall ill or incapacitated for any reason.
The next phase of the Oratory experience
was the development of “coadjutors” which were
both lay and religious. These prepared the way for
trade and technical schools which had as one of its
purposes the protetion from abusive employers in
soceity.
The professional schools was an idea long in
the making. The initial workshops necesarily had to
grow into professional institutes and tradeschools.
To that end, the fourth General Chapter of 1887
established uniform guidelines for professional
schools. Rather than seeing the trade school as a
negative link to the sad future of capitalism,
Tramontin suggests that Don Bosco systematically
contributed great growth and organization to
society and developed important and practical
relaitonships with entreurpuenerial efforts.
His special contribution will be
remembered in the field of publications. The
explosion of publications of educational and
devotional materials contributed to the education of
the region as well as the business of many printing
houses throughout Turin. So succesful were these
connections with industry that it would make
possible the opening of a printing press within the
Oratory by 1862. And this printing house “became
the dynamic center of the Valdocco workshops.
From this center grew other trades such as book-
binding and a bookshop. Tramontin quotes Fr.
Peter Stella who points out that Don Bosco had
developed a “third way” of educating the young
between the extremes of craftsmen and apprentice
and the new model of tradeschools, Don Bosco
openedn his own large workshop producing and
training simultaneously always on the look out for
helping his young people more and more.
5. Work and Rest
Recreation was not only built into the
contracts for the boys, it was often very creative
and festive. Don Bosco saw the playground as a
place to meet the young and to attract them
initially. Games taught balance and working
together. He did not like sedentery games because
he felt the boys needed physical activity to spend
their energies positively. Furthermore, such
activity draws youth away from danger.
Walks and hikes were important, to get out
of the city, to inspire wonder and appreciation in
nature, and to bring a bit of creativity and culture
into the working lives of these boys.
6. Work and Piety
Cheerfulness, work, and piety were woven
together in Don Bosco’s program. He saw piety
and catechism linked to recreation and education.
Don Bosco made it clear that piety and catechism
were never an afterthought but the actual starting
point of his mission. From his catechsim lessons,
the first band of boys grew into a large horde all in
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need of religious instruction. As early as 1847, Don
Bosco published his own additions to the catechism to
meet such needs. He recognized a dire need to update
the language and approach of catechism and piety and
in this, suggests Tramontin, Don Bosco made a
“qualitative leap.” His masterpiece along these efforts
would be published in 1847 as Giovane provveduto.
The Eucharist and sacraments were the basis
for the spiritual nourishment of both the boarders and
the countless day students. But these were found
always within a warm and familiar setting that evoked
trust. It was intentional for Don Bosco that the
experiences of piety, the approach to the sacraments,
and the spiritual life in general be made a comfortable
and integrated part of life, even as a respite from the
toils of each day.
7. As a conclusion
Don Bosco extolled the dignity of work and
the highest value of human life. He put at the center
the importance of meaningful and personally
dedicated work over mere production. Work has a
value apart from profit-making which enriches the
sense of shared community over individual
advancement. And for Don Bosco, all of the
dimensions and values of work had to contribute to
the saving of souls.
Charles Dickens Novel:
Hard Times
The Tale of Self-made Men
This novel by Charles Dickens revolves
around the lives connected to a wealthy merchant
in a town called Cokestown. This man raises his
two children according to the new rationalism with
a propensity for self-absorption and adherence only
to facts. This man, Thomas Gradgrind, even builds
a school to promote these new trends while raising
his children and another young person abandoned
by her father.
Gradgrind’s natural children lead horrible
and shallow lives. The son becomes a disillusioned
and self-absorbed man who works with the bank in
Cokestown run by another so-called self-made-
man. The daughter marries a factory owner
who is much older than she.
Another subplot develops by putting
attention on the “Hands,” as the lowest
laborers are known. At the center of this
concurrent story is a young hand desiring to be
free from a horrible marriage and marry
another “hand.” “The Hands” rally to form a
union for the calling of a strike. The young
man fears increased tensions and is fired for
refusing to participate in the plot to spy and
strike. It is this poor man of integrity who
grabs the attention of Gradgrind’s daughter,
already trapped in a horrible marriage. She
wants to help the young Hand. As he looks
for work as a farmhand, he becomes the prime
suspect of a bank robbery at the bank where
Gradgrind’s son works.
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The daughter of Grandgrind, Louisa, is
blackmailed by an assistant at the bank because the
poor girl is falling for a young educated man who
has come to apprentice with the bank manager.
The assistant tries to frame the daughter, but the
daughter runs to her father to confess a life of
meaningless misery. Her father, the self-made man
and rational intellect is hit hard by this revelation
and begins to rethink his own life. This is a turning
point in the novel. It seems that the lessons of a
heartless industrial world cannot be stopped and
things continue to unravel mercilessly, taking the
poor and the sophisticated down into the same
hopelessness. In fact, the young Hand is symbolic
of the effect of such self-serving tendencies upon the
weak and the honest. He dies after falling into a
shaft never able to marry the poor maiden also
stuck as a Hand at the factory. The poor young
Hand could not return to the town or fulfill his
dream to marry simply because he was held as the
most likely suspect in the bank robbery. But, in fact,
it turns out that the bank has been robbed by the
selfish son of Gradgrind. Tom, this disillusioned
fugitive tries to make an escape but is stopped by a
past student of Tom’s own father who has turned
his back on the foolishness of rationalism.
Eventually, a circus hand enables Tom to make a
successful escape.
One by one, the characters are exposed in
their shallow and selfish lives until Mr. Gradgrind
decides to turn his life toward helping the poor.
His son dies before he can make such a complete
conversion and his daughter remains unmarried
and childless. Ironically, the person who comes to
represent depth and goodness is the adopted child
abandoned by the circus hand. This third child
adopted by Gradgrind remains innocent and free of
the poisonous culture of heartless and pragmatic
rationalism dominating in her times. It is the poor
and abandoned one whom, in the end, has
happiness, a large family, and who even embraces
her stepsister in her miserable state.
Motivated by Personal Experience of Rejection and
Poverty
The story of Charles Dickens reads inexorably
in auto-biographical detail. The rejection, hardship,
and forgotten status in a hardened urban setting
plays out so many of personal details of the
author. His own mother died leaving him to fend
for himself in an institution. He finds his way to
an aunt who was more fantasy and mystery to
him than reality until he finds this angel to be a
living and caring person who literally adopts
Charles from the street. He works quite literally
in many jobs in similar straits to the Hands he
describes and even loses a possible marriage
because he status does not suit her father’s higher
class. When Dickens eventually marries, his wife
becomes ill and discovers that his first love lives
still with her father whose riches have been stolen
in an act of betrayal as the father had grown more
and more senile. The dying wife of the author
arranges for this poor firts love to meet with her
and promise to marry Charles upon the death of
this woman, his wife.
There are many other details, but it is
enough to see that Dickens does eventually marry
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and rescue his first love. He even steps into save her
betrayed father and helps settle things in court for a
return of his stolen and misappropriated properties.
Dickens saw the cold rationalism of an
industrial world as the heart of the evils of his time
and his world. Always at the center of the greatest
abuse would be found the poor, the weak, and
especially the uneducated youth. These were the
voiceless ones of his society. He wrote to expunge
this awful memory from his own veins, but more than
catharsis, he cried loud and clear to a society and
government quickly become deaf and blind to the
horrible plilght of these little ones. Though he would
find success in his own time, he would struggle for
many years. He knew the struggles of the lower
classes. He starved, scraped, and struggled for most
of his early life. And he knew that it could be
avoided.
As Don Bosco used the printing press to turn a
light on the very same conditions so too did Dickens
highlight the horrors of his age. Both men gave a
voice to the voiceless and engaged the comforable
bureaucrats with a reality they wanted badly to ignore.
Neither men allowed this ignorance to endure.
Attached here is an article written by Charles
Dickens in 1852, exactly the same time period in
which Don Bosco began to develop his three Oratories
and to respond to the repressive nature of education
and the poverty of children outside of education
caught in the tendrils of industrialization.
Charles Dickens writes on “Ragged
Schooling”(1852)
I offer no apology for entreating the attention
of the readers of The Daily News to an effort which
has been making for some three years and a half, and
which is making now, to introduce among the most
miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some
knowledge of the commonest principles of morality
and religion; to commence their recognition as
immortal human creatures, before the Gaol Chaplain
becomes their only schoolmaster; to suggest to
Society that its duty to this wretched throng,
foredoomed to crime and punishment, rightfully
begins at some distance from the police office; and
that the careless maintenance from year to year, in
this, the capital city of the world, of a vast hopeless
nursery of ignorance, misery and vice; a
breeding place for the hulks and jails: is horrible
to contemplate.
This attempt is being made in certain of
the most obscure and squalid parts of the
Metropolis, where rooms are opened, at night,
for the gratuitous instruction of all comers,
children or adults, under the title of RAGGED
SCHOOLS. The name implies the purpose. They
who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn,
to enter any other place: who could gain
admission into no charity school, and who would
be driven from any church door; are invited to
come in here, and find some people not
depraved, willing to teach them something, and
show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand
out, which is not the iron hand of Law, for their
correction.
Before I describe a visit of my own to a
Ragged School, and urge the readers of this letter
for God's sake to visit one themselves, and think
of it (which is my main object), let me say, that I
know the prisons of London well; that I have
visited the largest of them more times than I
could count; and that the children in them are
enough to break the heart and hope of any man. I
have never taken a foreigner or a stranger of any
kind to one of these establishments but I have
seen him so moved at sight of the child
offenders, and so affected by the contemplation
of their utter renouncement and desolation
outside the prison walls, that he has been as little
able to disguise his emotion, as if some great
grief had suddenly burst upon him. Mr.
Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey (than whom
more intelligent and humane Governors of
Prisons it would be hard, if not impossible, to
find) know perfectly well that these children pass
and repass through the prisons all their lives; that
they are never taught; that the first distinctions
between right and wrong are, from their cradles,
perfectly confounded and perverted in their
minds; that they come of untaught parents, and
will give birth to another untaught generation;
that in exact proportion to their natural abilities,
is the extent and scope of their depravity; and
that there is no escape or chance for them in any
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GeTttHinEg tLoOKRnEoMw DIPoSnUBMosSco
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Institute of SalesiWanINSpTirEitRua2l0it1y6
ordinary revolution of human affairs. Happily, there
are schools in these prisons now. If any readers doubt
how ignorant the children are, let them visit those
schools and see them at their tasks, and hear how
much they knew when they were sent there. If they
would know the produce of this seed, let them see a
class of men and boys together, at their books (as I
have seen them in the House of Correction for this
county of Middlesex), and mark how painfully the full
grown felons toil at the very shape and form of letters;
their ignorance being so confirmed and solid. The
contrast of this labour in the men, with the less
blunted quickness of the boys; the latent shame and
sense of degradation struggling through their dull
attempts at infant lessons; and the universal eagerness
to learn, impress me, in this passing retrospect, more
painfully than I can tell.
For the instruction, and as a first step in the
reformation, of such unhappy beings, the Ragged
Schools were founded. I was first attracted to the
subject, and indeed was first made conscious of their
existence, about two years ago, or more, by seeing an
advertisement in the papers dated from West Street,
Saffron Hill, stating "That a room had been opened
and supported in that wretched neighbourhood for
upwards of twelve months, where religious instruction
had been imparted to the poor", and explaining in a
few words what was meant by Ragged Schools as a
generic term, including, then, four or five similar
places of instruction. I wrote to the masters of this
particular school to make some further inquiries, and
went myself soon afterwards.
It was a hot summer night; and the air of Field
Lane and Saffron Hill was not improved by such
weather, nor were the people in those streets very
sober or honest company. Being unacquainted with
the exact locality of the school, I was fain to make
some inquiries about it. These were very jocosely
received in general; but everybody knew where it was,
and gave the right direction to it. The prevailing idea
among the loungers (the greater part of them the very
sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to
be, that the teachers were quixotic, and the school
upon the whole "a lark". But there was certainly a
kind of rough respect for the intention, and (as I have
said) nobody denied the school or its whereabouts, or
refused assistance in directing to it.
It consisted at that time of either two or three--
I forget which-miserable rooms, upstairs in a
miserable house. In the best of these, the pupils in
the female school were being taught to read and
write; and though there were among the number,
many wretched creatures steeped in degradation
to the lips, they were tolerably quiet, and listened
with apparent earnestness and patience to their
instructors. The appearance of this room was sad
and melancholy, of course--how could it be
otherwise!--but, on the whole, encouraging.
The close, low chamber at the back, in
which the boys were crowded, was so foul and
stifling as to be, at first, almost insupportable. But
its moral aspect was so far worse than its
physical, that this was soon forgotten. Huddled
together on a bench about the room, and shown
out by some flaring candles stuck against the
walls, were a crowd of boys, varying from mere
infants to young men; sellers of fruit, herbs,
lucifer-matches, flints; sleepers under the dry
arches of bridges; young thieves and beggars--
with nothing natural to youth about them: with
nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in their
faces; low-browed, vicious, cunning, wicked;
abandoned of all help but this; speeding
downward to destruction; and UNUTTERABLY
IGNORANT.
This, Reader, was one room as full as it
could hold; but these were only grains in sample
of a Multitude that are perpetually sifting through
these schools; in sample of a Multitude who had
within them once, and perhaps have now, the
elements of men as good as you or I, and maybe
infinitely better; in sample of a Multitude among
whose doomed and sinful ranks (oh, think of this,
and think of them!) the child of any man upon
this earth, however lofty his degree, must, as by
Destiny and Fate, be found, if, at its birth, it were
consigned to such an infancy and nurture, as
these fallen creatures had!
This was the Class I saw at the Ragged
School. They could not be trusted with books;
they could only be instructed orally; they were
difficult of reduction to anything like attention,
obedience, or decent behaviour; their benighted
ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any
social duty (how could they guess at any social
duty, being so discarded by all social teachers but
the gaoler and the hangman!) was terrible to see.
Yet, even here, and among these, something had
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Institute of SalesiWanINSpTirEitRua2l0it1y6
been done already. The Ragged School was of recent
date and very poor; but he had inculcated some
association with the name of the Almighty, which
was not an oath, and had taught them to look
forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life,
which would correct the miseries and woes of this.
The new exposition I found in this Ragged
School, of the frightful neglect by the State of those
whom it punishes so constantly, and whom it might,
as easily and less expensively, instruct and save;
together with the sight I had seen there, in the heart
of London; haunted me, and finally impelled me to
an endeavour to bring these Institutions under the
notice of the Government; with some faint hope that
the vastness of the question would supersede the
Theology of the schools, and that the Bench of
Bishops might adjust the latter question, after some
small grant had been conceded. I made the attempt;
and have heard no more of the subject from that
hour.
The perusal of an advertisement in
yesterday's paper, announcing a lecture on the
Ragged Schools last night, has led me into these
remarks. I might easily have given them another
form; but I address this letter to you, in the hope that
some few readers in whom I have awakened an
interest, as a writer of fiction, may be, by that means,
attracted to the subject, who might otherwise,
unintentionally, pass it over.
I have no desire to praise the system
pursued in the Ragged Schools; which is
necessarily very imperfect, if indeed there be
one. So far as I have any means of judging of
what is taught there, I should individually object
to it, as not being sufficiently secular, and as
presenting too many religious mysteries and
difficulties, to minds not sufficiently prepared
for their reception. But I should very imperfectly
discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and
impress on others, if I allowed any such doubt of
mine to interfere with my appreciation of the
efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to
promote them by any slight means in my power.
Irritating topics, of all kinds, are equally far
removed from my purpose and intention. But, I
adjure those excellent persons who aid,
munificently, in the building of New Churches,
to think of these Ragged Schools; to reflect
whether some portion of their rich endowments
might not be spared for such a purpose; to
contemplate, calmly, the necessity of beginning at
the beginning; to consider for themselves where the
Christian Religion most needs and most suggests
immediate help and illustration; and not to decide
on any theory or hearsay, but to go themselves into
the Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their
own conclusions. They will be shocked, pained,
and repelled, by much that they learn there; but
nothing they can learn will be onethousandth part
so shocking, painful, and repulsive, as the
continuance for one year more of these things as
they have been for too many years already.
Anticipating that some of the more
prominent facts connected with the history of the
Ragged Schools, may become known to the readers
of The Daily News through your account of the
lecture in question, I abstain (though in possession
of some such information) from pursuing the
question further, at this time. But if I should see
occasion, I will take leave to return to it.
First published 13 March 1852, The Daily
News
This piece has been reproduced here on the
understanding that it is not subject to any copyright
restrictions, and that it is, and will remain, in the
public
domain.
First placed in the archives: November 2001
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GeTttHinEg tLoOKRnEoMw DIPoSnUBMosSco
January 2012 Study Guide
Institute of SalesiWanINSpTirEitRua2l0it1y6
Suggestions for Use of this Guide...
During the Founder’s Month...
• Become familiar with the present day
work conditions affecting the lives of
young people and their families.
• With careful attention to the plight of
the undocumented, explore ways to
reach out to families caught between
cultures and economic conditions.
Discuss practical means for
providing services to these families
within the mission of your Salesian
presence.
As Cooperators deeply aware of the
present economic conditions, become a
resource for young people in finding
meaningful work. Perhaps you can offer
a session to local teens for creating
resumes. Where you can, introduce
young people into the world of your own
employment. Offer shadow days and
apprentice opportunities.
Be sure to pray for families struggling to
find decent work and meaningful lives.
Job fairs and Career Days are often a part of the
Salesian Mission. Perhaps these opportunities
can bring much needed attention to the local
poor who seem stuck in this economic
downturn.
• Invite young people to learn about job
hunting
• Alert them to the advantages and
dangers of their profiles available on the
internet
• Help them to market themselves as
responsible young people in a way that
does not compromise their
opportunities
In this time for college application, assist the
young people through the complicated paperwork.
13
Many people are facing uncertainty because of
their job security, the lack of benefits for their
families, and other financial woes. This is a
time when we can give practical assistance to
one another. Help the unemployed look for
work. Assist colleagues with letters of
recommendation, skills for saving and
investing, and even where possible offering
financial assistance when necessary. In a
special way this month, pay close attention to
young families struggling to feed and clothe
their children. Educate the young to reach out
with their means, as well, doing all they can
for those struggling to survive.

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GETTING TO KNOW DON BOSCO
Don Bosco for Today
JANUARY 2012
These hard financial times would not be something that Don Bosco
would easily dismiss. His example both inspires and haunts us as he
gave everything, especially to the poor. He felt the pangs of hunger,
suffered the cold, and dove into the hostile world around him to
rescue young people from poverty in its
many manifestations. May your
attentiveness to the poor bring you closer
to the heart and mission of Don Bosco!
Ask an expert!
Share your questions for Fr. Arthur...
Please send your questions regarding the History of Don
Bosco and his place in History to Fr. Arthur. Send these to
DonBoscoHallCA@gmail.com
Guidelines for Deeper Study...
From the Critical Works of Fr. Arthur
Lenti peruse the following treatments of
the material included in this Study Guide
• In Don Bosco: History and Spirit,
volume 3: “Don Bosco Spiritual
Master, Writer and Founder of the
Salesian Society, read chapter 3,
“The Decade 1850-1861 and Its
Importance” found on pages 59-
107.
• This survey of the critical times of
Don Bosco examine his actions and
decisions in the midst of revolution
and political upheaval.
• This important decade introduces
the vital role of the Salesian Lay
Brother and the introduction of the
Trade-schools.
From the Memoirs of the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales,
by St. John Bosco, read the following sections:
• Read Chapters 40-63, pp.134-190. These
chapters are the last reporting of Don Bosco
in this volume and form the third part of the
Memoirs: The Third Decade: 1846-1855
From Don Bosco: Religious Outlook and Spirituality, by
Pietro Stella, SDB, read the following chapters:
• “Chapter 1: God, Creator, and Lord” pp. 3-
18
• “Chapter 2: The Human Being” pp. 19-28.
• “Chapter 3: Sin” pp. 29-45.
STELLA Pietro, Don Bosco: Religious Outlook
and Spirituality, DRURY J,
(translation) Salesiana Publishers,
New York, 1996.