Prevent, do not repress – Don Bosco's educational system

The "educational system" or, in a broader concept, the pedagogical experience of Don Bosco is a project that has been growing, spreading and gradually specifying itself in the most diverse and varied institutions and works carried out by many disciples and collaborators.
It is evident that its operational vitality can only be guaranteed over time by fidelity to the principles of all authentic growth: renewal, deepening, and adaptation, in continuity. It is an always open task.
On the other hand, continuity can only be ensured by an intelligent confrontation with the origins.
Provoking a life-giving contact with the primitive "roots" of Don Bosco's preventive experience and its fundamental features is the objective of this rapid synthesis.
It is not intended, therefore, to present immediately applicable action programs, but rather to simply describe the essential original elements, although historically conditioned and limited, since it is only they that can validate present and future projects, actionable in diverse spaces and contexts.
It is an indispensable condition so that the legitimate aspiration to continue acting "with Don Bosco and with the times" can be verified, without stagnation or solutions of continuity.
In this third edition, significantly corrected and expanded, the historical data is presented with greater effort, some idealizations are softened, and useful elements are revealed for an inevitable revision and revitalization, also supported by a recent bibliography.