2.1. School, college, educators
From 1831 to 1835 Don Bosco studied grammar, humanities and rheto
ric at Chieri High School. He passed from 17 to 20 years o f age in this pe
riod which was an period of cultural maturing, with the explosion of social relations and a marked apostolic dimension and firm vocational choice.
Here became clear certain traits of his future (youthful) spirituality:
a. In the first place the trinom ial: study, devotion and cheerfulness, which will recur in later years in different forms in his letters.
b. In addition the care given to the promoting of culture and the acquir
ing of knowledge, so important in the future organization of colleges and essential for the regular courses in philosophy and theology in view of the priesthood.
c. Study: one of the main duties o f a young person. The desire to study is one of the ruling passions of Don Bosco all through his younger days: it could be argued that study was the path through which God had given him growth and protection, and had accompanied him in the realization of his vocation. He used to dedicate a part of each night also to study, at the risk of ruining his health. The result of all this study was that his companions began to have recourse to him for what Don Bosco called “scholastic chari
ty”, i.e. he let them copy his “homework”, until at a certain point this was forbidden; but he always helped in whatever way he could the young peo
ple with whom he lived.
d. In the writing of his Memoirs he is already a founder and formation guide of educators, and so he does not hesitate to express judgm ents on the teachers and educators of his college, emphasizing their good qualities and lim itations. One, Prof. Banaudi, he praises for his m ethod o f education which resem bles the one he him self would use in later years w ith the youngsters at Valdocco; another, Fr Maloria, he praises for his gifts as a spiritual director and for his work against bad companions. He appreciated other local priests of his neighbourhood too for their pastoral parish work, but regretted that he was never able to “achieve a familiar relationship with them”. It was this that led him to say in his heart that if he ever becam e a
priest he would behave differently. Well known also is his conversation with the cleric Cafasso at the church door:
- M y f r ie n d ... the show s and sp ectacles fo r p riests are the c h u rch fu n c tio n s ...
- W h at you say is true, b u t th ere is a tim e fo r everything: a tim e to g o to c h u rch and a tim e for recreation.
In his college life, regulated by precise norms, Don Bosco discovered the religious and moral foundation for life and study; the value of instruc
tion and C hristian religious practice; concern for order, discipline and morality (ensured by the “prefect of studies”); interior formation through
“assemblies”, spiritual direction and the use of the sacraments; the lighten
ing of serious duty by the human character and interpersonal relationships between students and teachers and between the students themselves, the use of rewards and moderation in punishments.
2.2. The Cheerful Club
To this Don Bosco devotes quite a bit of space in the Memoirs. It was of prime moral and religious value, rather like a sodality and at the same time a kind o f “culture club”. An outstanding member was Comollo, the meek and docile youngster whom Don Bosco would meet again as a seminary companion; and there was the Jew Jonah (later converted), with whom he spent many a happy hour playing the piano, reading, exchanging experi
ences (another not indifferent m ethod for coming closer in the spiritual practice of Don Bosco). The many pages in the Memoirs about his joyful and light hearted student-life recall what he wrote with em phasis in the N otes o f 1862 and the N otes o f 1874 (the latter contem porary with the M emoirs); in these games and pastimes - all of them in good taste (and he gives a list of them) - if he was not famous he was not far below it. It is al
most certain that here he wanted to point to a style, or better a characteriz
ing spirit, previously unknown in the field of educative and pastoral work.
2.3. H is relationships w ith com panions
If it is true, as it undoubtedly is, that man is a relationship, that human relations constitute the being o f a person, we may ask how John got on with his companions.
a. It must be said first of all that Don Bosco did not just leave it to chance in the matter of his relationships; he chose his friends with care.
One of his distinguishing characteristics was his interior clarity of mind in the midst of people. To some he said yes and to others no, because after summing them up he found that the first were positive and constructive but the second enslaved him. When much later he would write o f boys o f good, ordinary, or difficult dispositions and how to deal with each type, he had very much in mind his own youthful experience: “In the first four classes I had to learn for myself how to deal with companions. I divided them into three categories: good, indifferent and bad. The last group I completely avoided once I had got to know them for what they were; if I had to deal with the indifferent I treated them with courtesy; but when I got to know the good ones I cultivated their friendship”.
b. Don Bosco also matured through his relationships as, for instance, with the young Braje, C om ollo and G arigliano, with whom he shared recreation and school work. He em phasized the extent to w hich these friendships had supported him in his youth, once they had been carefully chosen. He was moreover very faithful to his friends; all his life, as long as he was able to do so, he made his confession regularly to Fr Giacomello who had been a seminary companion. For Don Bosco friendship was not something merely casual, an emotive hobby, but one of the fundamental perspectives on which to build his own life and later that of his boys. He would say of Comollo: “He was always my close friend, and I can say that it was from him that I first learned how to live as a Christian. I had full confidence in him, as he had in me”.
c. Especially were his friendships mature and spiritual. We could quote many of his sayings in this connection: “We went together to confession and communion; we made our meditation and spiritual reading together;
together we visited the Blessed Sacrament and served Mass”. This level of confidence is not easily achieved, even for us who are religious, but it is a goal we must attain - Don Bosco considered it essential.
2.4. Joy and happiness
In his youth Don Bosco had an extraordinary concern about m aking others happy. Knowing that all youngsters are hungry for life, he saw in
stinctively that to get close to them and becom e their friend he must him self have this hunger for life which is m anifested in happiness. But w hat kind of happiness? The answ er is in the rules o f the “C heerful C lub” .
a. In the first place it was a happiness that was willed, not arising from some chance situation but from a plan of life. He writes: “Each one is strictly bound to look for those books, those pastimes and topics o f conver
sation that can keep us happy” . This is a Don Bosco who always kept him self like that. “It was unbelievable - as Don Cerruti would say much later - how much work Don Bosco did to keep us happy; he invented so many things that his over-serious fellow-students thought he was mad”.
b. It was a happiness that had to be defended: Don Bosco knew in
stinctively that happiness has enemies that m ust im mediately be shown the door: “everything was forbidden that could cause sadness or depres
sion, especially anything contrary to G od’s law ”. A happiness that was neither vulgar nor dangerous, as he could have experienced for him self at the invitation of som e bad com panions, an invitation he flatly turned down every time. Here we have the association between sin and sadness, and between happiness and grace, characteristic o f the preventive system.
If we don’t understand this, we haven’t grasped the reason for the great in
sistence on happiness through all Don B osco’s pedagogy. It is always a happiness that arises from the friendly heart of the Lord, a happiness that is of service in the evangelization of the young, i.e. in proclaiming that God is our happiness.
c. A happiness that calls also for commitment. The second article of the regulations said: “Exactness in the fulfillment of scholastic and religious duties”. This was the proclamation of the pedagogy of duty that Don Bosco would use all his life. God does not ask for extraordinary things, but only that we be mature in doing what we are obliged to do, in the little things of every day. One need only read the biographies he wrote of three boys. That is how we become holy, and a witness puts it very well when he says: “We didn ’t notice Don B osco’s holiness because he was so sim ple in doing everything well. Only someone who knew the hard work he had to put in to do this every day, knew that to do it to the full you really had to be a saint”.
d. And finally a happiness that evangelized. If it is true that this kind of happiness stems from a heart in love with God, it is also true that it must be cherished and spread amongst others. During the week the Cheerful Club used to meet in the house of one or other of its members to talk about reli
gion, and there you have the beginnings of the Oratory. The happiness Don Bosco speaks of is the joy of one who believes. This is why those who ap
proached him became so entranced: “I would be willing - said St. Orione - to do anything if I could only go back and live for a time with Don Bosco, as I did when I was a boy” .