Education as prevention

Historically, the idea o f education as prevention stands out as clearly connected with preventive education, without considering how it is achieved, whether by repressive or preventive methods. The authors who insisted on this view were already mentioned earlier: Morichini, Aporti, Degerando and Petitti di Roreto.

As Romagnosi perceptively remarks it is up to civil authority, namely it is the absolute right o f those who govern to demand that all individuals be given an elementary education, for this is the best means to guarantee a peaceful state to society. It would be foolish to say that civil authority may use punishments, even severe and terrible punishments for crimes committed while it is unable to prevent them. Now there is no wise man who would deny that public instruction is one o f the most powerful means o f prevention.42

Even Charles Cattaneo referred to John Dominic Romagnosi at the conclusion o f his essay on the ineffectiveness, or rather the damage produced by penal deportation.

“The study o f the penal system shows ever m ore clearly how deep and wise was the statem ent m ade by Rom agnosi that ‘a good governm ent is a great safeguard, when accom panied by a great educational program ’”.43

40 C.I. Petitti di Roreto, S a g g io . 2 ,4 8 3 -4 8 4 .

41 C. Cattaneo, S critti p o litic i e d epistolario, published by G.Rosa and J. White Mario.

(Florence, Barbera 1892), 88-89: a fragment on A tavism o delittu oso.

42 C.L. M orichini, D eg li istitu ti di p u b b lica carità, 33.

43 C.Cattaneo, D ella riform a pen a le, 2. “D ella deportazione”, in O pere di G iandom enico Romagnosi, Carlo Cattaneo, Giuseppe Ferrari, ed. Ernesto Sestan, (Milan-Naples, R. Ricciardi

1957), 505 (note, the exact expression used by R om agnosi in tw o different works).

Ferrante Aporti considered his kindergarten to be a preventive institution aiming at eliminating the deformation encountered by children who grow up in fami lies unable to provide the right education or which cannot do it all.44 In a word, these families are unable to effectively defend the innocent childhood o f the poor from vices and errors.45 With the kindergarten Aporti had intended to com m ence the creation o f a vast netw ork o f new institutions destined to prevent imm orality from childhood on; “for once this period is contam inated by immorality, there can hardly be any healing for it” .46 In the preface to the Manuale di educazione edammaestramento (M anual o f Education and Instruction), w ritten in 1833,47 Aporti speaks about the ch ild ’s extraordinary receptiveness and about the need to respond to this with preventive, educative care. K indergartens were the offshoot o f a “charity directed to prevent rather than allowing evils to be suffered, then provided medical care” .48 While he was expressing his gratitude to the Com m ission for Kindergartens in the city o f Venice, Aporti stated:

All in all, in Venice anything to do with this twofold act o f charity directed at prevention rather than permission for evils to be suffered and then cured, is and will always be for me and forthose who aim at doing good, constant cause o f due admiration. Therefore may this honourable commission accept the most sincere expression o f the congratulations I have the honour to convey. For up to now, the commission has carried out the difficult undertaking o f reforming and re-organizing the education o f the poor wonderfully. This action is the only means good enough to redeem the poor from the abjection o f ignorance, from sloth and from the vices necessarily connected with them. This is the way they can provide an inestimable good for the Catholic Church and for the state.49 This idea w as fully shared by Petitti di Roreto:

Those who are involved in the education o f children, with the so-called kindergarten, and in the education o f adolescents, in orphanages both temporaiy

44 C f. the rich h istorical essa y w ith co p io u s b ib liograp h ical referen ces, by L. P azzaglia,

“A sili, C h iesa e m on d o cattolico n e ll’Italia d e ll’800", in P edagogia e v ita , 5 6 ,1 9 9 8 : 4 ,. 6 3 -7 8 . 45 Letter to C. B o n co m p a g n i, June 30, 1838, in A , G am baro, F erra n te A p o rti e g li asili n el R is o r g im e n to ,. 2. D o cu m en ti M em orie C arteggi, (Turin, 1937),. 397.

46 Letter to G. Petrucci, A ug. 6 ,1 8 4 2 , in A. Gam baro, F errante A p o rli e gli a s ili,. 2 ,4 7 0 -4 7 1 . 47 F. A porti, S critti peda g o g ici, co llected and illustrated by A . Gam bari.I. (Turin: C hinatore 1944), 8-14.

48 F. A p orti, E le m e n ti di p ed a g o g ia , in S c ritti p ed a g o g ic i, co lle c te d and illustrated by A . Gambaro, 2. (Turin:, Chinatore 1945), 114.

49 Letter Ju ly-A u gu st 1842, in A . G am bero, as cited. 2 ,3 7 8 - 3 7 9 . “ O nce I saw the universal d e fic ie n c y o f ed u cation at h om e, the great sou rce o f v ic e s d e filin g and d eb asin g us, and I saw that n o b o d y w a s d o in g anything about it, I set out to p rovid e a rem ed y ” (L etter to G iovan n i R ebasti di Piacenza, M arch 2 1 ,1 8 4 1 , ibid., p. 4 4 5 ).

and p e rm a n en t... are the ones who safeguard them in their tenderest age and protect them from many physical and moral dangers; they are the ones who provide them with the opportunity to learn a skill which will guarantee their future existence...

The shelter- houses provided for young people ... can successfully lead these young people by a means o f persuasion, firmness and paternal exhortations to again follow good principles and thus prevent society from being harmed by some o f them.

The houses for workshops and shelter... provide the means to earn an honourable livelihood.50

The idea o f prevention is again used in reference to the rules for the Educatori della pi'ima infanzia e dell 'adolescenza (educational institutions for early childhood and adolescence). Furthermore it is appropriate that poor children receive a religious and moral, literary and artistic education. The reason for this is the ignorance and the lack o f far-sightedness that their parents have, the lack o f suitable means, at times even the parents ill will, which will perhaps, allow children and adolescents to be completely uneducated and bent towards immoral and bad behaviour and worse which might follow.51

The proposal to educate the masses in order to properly meet their needs, and prevent crim inality, takes up m ore space in the already cited publication, Della condizione atluale delle carceri:. Educarlo, assuefarlo ad essere previdente, e soccorrerlo quando e ’nel bisogno (Regarding jails at the moment: you must educate the prisoner, get him used to looking ahead and help him when he needs it).

The kindergarten program, the primary and elementary schools, the agricultural school, arts and crafts schools, can reach their goal and all governments should truly have the intention o f promoting them, fostering them, protecting them, if they really want the improvement o f the population entrusted to their care.

However, instruction alone is not enough to reach this goal: it m ust be accompanied by a religious and moral education. That is how the hearts o f the young are trained to good behaviour and to keep away from the dangers to which they are exposed by human passions.

The people’s work often produces abundant revenues, far above their present needs. If there is no incentive to save what is superfluous by putting it into

50 C.I: Petitti di R oreto, Saggio, 1 , 139-140.

‘savings banks’, in view o f future needs, these extra revenues are uselessly wasted in debauchery, excessive vices or at least in useless expenses.

‘Savings banks’, Life insurances, stocks in mutual aid societies or in productive industrial enterprises are so many useful ways to save extra revenues. They should be promoted, fostered and protected, because they guarantee that the already mentioned revenues not be uselessly wasted or harmfully used. It must however be remarked that it is necessary for the government to intervene in such speculations in order to protect the private interests o f those who put their revenues in such institutions...52

The m agazine L ’educatore primario (The prim ary school teacher) was a definite propaganda tool for popular culture from a sim ilar perspective.

The instruction o f the masses, though not necessary as some people think, should be considered inevitable in our times. The instruction should be given according to the needs o f those who receive it, and according to the needs o f the country in which it is given; the government should direct it according to these needs; children should be prepared to become adults; in the schools there should be a training period for a civic way o f living. All o f these are truths which leave no room for doubt.53