E. Uhlrich

“ We have with us always, not only the unfortunate and neglected little ones of every race and color on the earth, but, even more pitiable, those little ones who, by nature and inheritance, would be with us, as a matter of course, were it not for the careless drifting of their parents on the easy and pleasant current of indifference, that spiritual sluggishness in some ways more reprehensible and certainly less respectable than honest doubt or definite unbelief. ”

“ An article published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD in 1903, about Don Bosco. Today, he is better known as Saint John Bosco, the patron saint of young people.
WHEN one man in his lifetime has cared for, trained, and sent out into the world, as useful and law-abiding citizens, ten million children, then the attention of people may well be drawn to him again and again, for it is the lives of such men that keep the heart of the world from despair. ”

“ Even the young children who go to Sunday-school often know, or could easily learn, of some neglected child that has perhaps no parents, or has parents who have no faith, and which therefore hears nothing of religion and of right. Like Garelli, Don Bosco's first pupil and follower, regular Sunday-school children could take such a child to their own Sunday-school. The children of the Paulist Sunday-school in New York City, for instance, are constantly encouraged to bring with them any child they know which does not go to Sunday-school in any other place. ”

“ And it must always be remembered that among the poor and the unfortunate the inspiration for better things must come from those who have more than they of means, of time, of intelligence, and, above all, of devotion. ”

“ Every year eighteen thousand apprentices leave his institutions and go out to work, trained in body and mind for contact with the world.
As a means of maintaining his work, Don Bosco founded a third society to which men and women, lay or clerical, can belong, their object being to help provide means for this great work, and the Holy Father himself belongs to this third society. ”

“ The one causes the body to suffer, but the other may mean the death of the soul, and delivers the body to the lawlessness and to the excesses that lead to untimely death in one generation and help on that lamentable degeneration--physically, morally, and mentally--in the succeeding generations which is, to-day, one of the most discouraging questions in the dark problems of the great cities. ”

“ Here, in the mother house, are some thirty Salesian priests, as the members of the congregation founded by Don Bosco, at the suggestion of Minister Ratazzi, are called; nearly two hundred Salesian brothers, who are the master workmen, and four hundred students. In addition to the resident pupils that are being trained and cared for, about five hundred boys and apprentices spend their Sundays and recreation hours at the institution, something in the way in which children in this country go to the Settlements that have been established here and there in the large cities. ”

“ In 1844, with the help of some kindly priests, Don Bosco opened the first night schools, teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools were soon imitated all over Italy.
Don Bosco, however, continued to meet with trials and tribulations in his work, as seems true in every good cause. His plans were so novel and so large that he was even accused of being crazy. A crazy man, however, ought to be out of harm's way, and so it was quietly arranged that Don Bosco should be taken to an insane asylum. Two prominent gentlemen of Turin were to manage his transfer to the asylum. ”