austraLasia #3267
21 August 2013 -- As a number of readers requested a copy of 'Severino', it now seems reasonable to offer the story of Peter, who would have attended the Oratory shortly after Severino decided to quit!
Don Bosco was in the process of formulating his experience of the primitive Oratory and preferred to do this through story-telling. Dominic Savio was still in his second year at Valdocco when Don Bosco wrote Peter's story, but by this time (1855), Peter was already on the Crimean peninsula fighting the Russians, so he would have attended the Oratory maybe in 1847 or thereabouts. While Severino's 'adventures' had been those of a country lad who had attended the primitive Oratory, quit, launched out on his own somewhat disastrously, and eventually became the mature adult, Peter was a city boy who seemed to avoid all disasters, at least those that could be said to result from his own behaviour.
Peter's story tails off at the end and Don Bosco leaves us uncertain (because he was unsure) whether he lived or died as a result of the war, but it is essentially the story of the effects of his upbringing, mainly at home, in his parish and partly at the Oratory, and Don Bosco is at pains for us to see the results of good breeding.
But first things first. You will note that the original title (La forza della buona educazione) is translated here as The Power of a Good Upbringing. You may not have read the story (it has not been previously translated), but you will have seen a number of references to it, and all of these have the title as "The Power of a Good Education". This now seems far too literal. If you actually do read the story you see that Peter, at eight years of age, was already employed at a Turin match factory, then a cotton factory at age thirteen from where he was called up for military service (we assume rather later, at around 18 years of age). His mother and father were illiterate, he attended some catechism classes in his parish and some evening classes at the Oratory (which began around 1845). That was as much schooling and education as we normally think of it in English, as he ever received.
Don Bosco makes it abundantly clear in his conclusion that Peter was a virtuous and mature adult who brought honour to his city, family and country because he had had a good upbringing at home and even played his own part in 'educating' his father, where religion was concerned! There is no question that this is the thrust of the story and therefore its title should reflect that. It is also the case, even today, that to speak of 'buona educazione' or its negative, in the 'maleducato', in Italian, means essentially to speak of good breeding or the lack thereof. One may be well-schooled, even have the best of social graces, but still be maleducato.
He did, of course, learn to read and write and picked up the rudiments of Italian grammar, some arithmetic at the Oratory evening classes. DB does not miss an opportunity to suggest he also learned the 'Metric and Decimal System' - from his own text, of course, which stood Peter in good stead both at work and in the army, so we learn.
Again a warning, though of a different kind to the one issued for 'Severino'. Peter puts Dominic Savio, Michael Magone and Francis Besucco in the shade for overall holiness - even if you roll them all into one! You may find the chapters on his First Communion and Confession a trifle cloying for modern sensitivities, but Don Bosco is of course making a point about the two pillars of his educational approach.
By the time he wrote about Savio, Magone and Besucco Don Bosco was already running something we might call an aspirantate today. That was not the case for Peter, who was a child labourer, if we wanted to find a description of him at 11 years of age when he first visited the Oratory. He lived with his family, a good one basically, once his father got back on the straight and narrow, and he belonged to and frequented his parish. He did not indicate an interest in the 'ecclesiastical state', as DB often has his characters do. All of that is important in this story.
Possibly the key 'mature' message in the entire story, though, comes when Peter writes to his mother from the Crimea and urges her: "Tell my brothers and sisters that work produces good citizens, and religion produces good Christians, but that work and religion lead to heaven". That message is for any time and place and offends no sensitivities!
Again, if you wish to have an html version or even an epub, you only need to ask.
'Valentino' will be next, which completes the set of stories of boys who had direct and historical connection with the Oratory. It is this group in particular which demonstrates features of Don Bosco's pedagogy over a more or less thirty year period.
21 August 2013 -- As a number of readers requested a copy of 'Severino', it now seems reasonable to offer the story of Peter, who would have attended the Oratory shortly after Severino decided to quit!
Don Bosco was in the process of formulating his experience of the primitive Oratory and preferred to do this through story-telling. Dominic Savio was still in his second year at Valdocco when Don Bosco wrote Peter's story, but by this time (1855), Peter was already on the Crimean peninsula fighting the Russians, so he would have attended the Oratory maybe in 1847 or thereabouts. While Severino's 'adventures' had been those of a country lad who had attended the primitive Oratory, quit, launched out on his own somewhat disastrously, and eventually became the mature adult, Peter was a city boy who seemed to avoid all disasters, at least those that could be said to result from his own behaviour.
Peter's story tails off at the end and Don Bosco leaves us uncertain (because he was unsure) whether he lived or died as a result of the war, but it is essentially the story of the effects of his upbringing, mainly at home, in his parish and partly at the Oratory, and Don Bosco is at pains for us to see the results of good breeding.
But first things first. You will note that the original title (La forza della buona educazione) is translated here as The Power of a Good Upbringing. You may not have read the story (it has not been previously translated), but you will have seen a number of references to it, and all of these have the title as "The Power of a Good Education". This now seems far too literal. If you actually do read the story you see that Peter, at eight years of age, was already employed at a Turin match factory, then a cotton factory at age thirteen from where he was called up for military service (we assume rather later, at around 18 years of age). His mother and father were illiterate, he attended some catechism classes in his parish and some evening classes at the Oratory (which began around 1845). That was as much schooling and education as we normally think of it in English, as he ever received.
Don Bosco makes it abundantly clear in his conclusion that Peter was a virtuous and mature adult who brought honour to his city, family and country because he had had a good upbringing at home and even played his own part in 'educating' his father, where religion was concerned! There is no question that this is the thrust of the story and therefore its title should reflect that. It is also the case, even today, that to speak of 'buona educazione' or its negative, in the 'maleducato', in Italian, means essentially to speak of good breeding or the lack thereof. One may be well-schooled, even have the best of social graces, but still be maleducato.
He did, of course, learn to read and write and picked up the rudiments of Italian grammar, some arithmetic at the Oratory evening classes. DB does not miss an opportunity to suggest he also learned the 'Metric and Decimal System' - from his own text, of course, which stood Peter in good stead both at work and in the army, so we learn.
Again a warning, though of a different kind to the one issued for 'Severino'. Peter puts Dominic Savio, Michael Magone and Francis Besucco in the shade for overall holiness - even if you roll them all into one! You may find the chapters on his First Communion and Confession a trifle cloying for modern sensitivities, but Don Bosco is of course making a point about the two pillars of his educational approach.
By the time he wrote about Savio, Magone and Besucco Don Bosco was already running something we might call an aspirantate today. That was not the case for Peter, who was a child labourer, if we wanted to find a description of him at 11 years of age when he first visited the Oratory. He lived with his family, a good one basically, once his father got back on the straight and narrow, and he belonged to and frequented his parish. He did not indicate an interest in the 'ecclesiastical state', as DB often has his characters do. All of that is important in this story.
Possibly the key 'mature' message in the entire story, though, comes when Peter writes to his mother from the Crimea and urges her: "Tell my brothers and sisters that work produces good citizens, and religion produces good Christians, but that work and religion lead to heaven". That message is for any time and place and offends no sensitivities!
Again, if you wish to have an html version or even an epub, you only need to ask.
'Valentino' will be next, which completes the set of stories of boys who had direct and historical connection with the Oratory. It is this group in particular which demonstrates features of Don Bosco's pedagogy over a more or less thirty year period.
