The Companion of Youth is one of St John Bosco's best known works. First published in 1847,¹ when the Oratory, finally settled at Valdocco in the Pinardi house, began to develop its character as a full-time educational and pastoral work, it ran to more than a hundred editions during the saint's lifetime and continued to be reprinted and translated until halfway through the twentieth century. It is not just a simple handbook of prayers and devout practices. It aims at offering young people “a cheerful and happy way of living as a Christian”, a proposal for spiritual life and youthful holiness. In short, we find in it all the characteristic content of the model in place at the Oratory for growing up, a system which was successfully practised and remained substantially unchanged over successive decades “because the religious experience it proposed was linked with the entire system and life style which, according to Don Bosco, young people were immersed in every day at the Oratory and in similar educational settings”.²