On the Punishments to Be Inflicted in Salesian Houses
From Dei castighi da infliggersi nelle case salesiane, the standing instruction to Salesian Rectors on correction
Translator’s note
This translation is rendered from the verbatim 1883 Italian text as published by the Salesian Congregation (Salesiani di Don Bosco) at sdb.org, in their official “Don Bosco, Scritti” archive (https://www.sdb.org/it/Don_Bosco_Risorse/Scritti/Scritti/CASTIGHI_INFLIGGERSI). The Italian source on that page is the critical text established by Pietro Braido in Don Bosco educatore: scritti e testimonianze (3rd ed., Istituto Storico Salesiano, Fonti, Serie prima, n. 9, Rome: LAS, 1997, pp. 317–333). The Salesian editors note that the circular is attributed to Don Bosco and remained unpublished until 1935, it was probably drafted at Valdocco in 1883 by Bosco’s closest collaborators, based on pedagogical writings by Teppa, Monfat, and Rollin, and issued under Bosco’s name with his approval as the standing instruction to all Salesian Rectors on how to handle correction in their houses. The voice is Bosco’s pastoral voice; the editorial provenance is collegial. It is signed: Day of St. Francis [de Sales], 1883, Your most affectionate Father and Friend, Fr. Giovanni Bosco.
The translation follows the same principles as the 1877 Preventive System treatise and the 1884 Lettera da Roma. Castigo is rendered “punishment” (or “chastisement” where Bosco speaks of God’s chastisement). Repressione is rendered “repression”, kept as Bosco’s technical opposite to prevenzione. Direttore is rendered “Rector.” Assistenti as “assistants.” Camera caritatis (in camera charitatis in the Italian) is preserved in Latin and translated. Camerino di riflessione, the “reflection room,” a punitive isolation cell common in 19th-century Italian boarding schools, is preserved with explanation. Latin Scripture is preserved italicized and translated. Sentences and paragraphs have been broken up where 19th-century Italian periods would read as run-ons in modern American English. No content has been condensed.
A note on this document’s relationship to the 1877 treatise. The 1877 Preventive System contains a short closing section titled Una parola sui castighi, “A Word on Punishments.” The 1883 circular is the long-form expansion of exactly that section: the same theme, the same convictions, the same examples (St. Francis de Sales on the bee and the honey, Socrates and the slave, St. Paul’s conversion at Damascus, Moses interceding for Israel), but now developed into a five-part instruction to the men in the field. This is the practical manual that the 1877 treatise pointed toward.
A note on Jennifer Keoshgerian’s modern compilation. The 2024 compilation The Preventive System by Jennifer Keoshgerian (Chapters Three and Four) draws its content from this 1883 circular. Her Chapter Three corresponds substantially to sections I, II, and III of this circular; her Chapter Four corresponds to sections IV and V. Some material in her Chapter Four (the indirect-correction technique, the “third person” advice, and the virga vigilans passage) is taken from the closing pages of section III and section V of this circular, where Bosco discusses how to involve a third party in correction and how God Himself is described in Scripture as a “watching rod.” There is no separate Bosco document underlying her Chapters Three and Four, this single 1883 circular is the source, and a fresh complete translation of it covers both her chapters.
My dear sons,
Often, and from many quarters, there come to me now requests, now even pleas, that I should set down some rules for the Rectors, the Prefects, and the Teachers, rules that may guide them in the difficult case of having to inflict any punishment in our houses. You know what times we are living in, and with what ease a small imprudence can carry the gravest consequences with it.
Wishing, then, to meet your requests, and to spare myself and you no small grief, and, better yet, to obtain the greatest possible good for those young boys whom Divine Providence will entrust to our care, I am sending you a few precepts and counsels. If you will undertake, as I hope you will, to put them into practice, they will help you greatly in the holy and difficult work of religious, moral, and intellectual education.
In general, the system we must use is the one called Preventive1, which consists in disposing the souls of our students in such a way that, without any external compulsion, they bend themselves to do what we want. By this system I mean to tell you that coercive means are never to be employed, but always and only those of persuasion and Loving-kindness (carità).
But because human nature, all too inclined to evil, sometimes needs to be restrained by severity, I think it good to propose to you a few means which, I hope, with God’s help, will lead us to a consoling end. First of all, if we want to show ourselves friends of the true good of our students, and bind them to do their duty, you must never forget that you stand in the place of the parents of these dear young people, who have always been the tender object of my occupations, my studies, my priestly ministry, and of our Salesian Congregation. So if you are going to be true fathers to your students, you must also have their hearts. Never come to repression or punishment without reason and without justice, and only in the manner of one who adapts himself to it by necessity, in order to fulfill a duty.
I intend to set out here what the true reasons are that should bring you to repression, what punishments should be adopted, and by whom they should be applied.
I. Never punish until you have exhausted every other means
How many times, my dear sons, in my long career, have I had to convince myself of this great truth! It is certainly easier to lose patience than to keep it; to threaten a child than to persuade him. I would even say it is more convenient for our impatience and our pride to punish those who resist us, than to correct them by bearing with them firmly and with kindness. The Loving-kindness (carità) that I recommend to you is the kind St. Paul used toward the faithful newly converted to the Lord’s religion, the kind that often made him weep and beg, when he saw them less docile and less responsive to his zeal.
For this reason I recommend that all the Rectors must first use paternal correction toward our dear sons, and that this correction be made in private, or, as people say, in camera charitatis, “in the room of love.” In public never reprove anyone directly, except to prevent a scandal, or to repair one that has already been given.
If after the first warning no improvement is seen, speak about it to another superior who has some influence over the offender, and then in the end, speak about it to the Lord. I would want every Salesian always to be like Moses, who labors to appease the Lord justly angered against his people of Israel. I have seen that a sudden punishment, given without first seeking other means, is rarely of any use. No thing, says St. Gregory, can force a heart, for the heart is like an impregnable fortress, which must be won by affection and gentleness.
Be firm in willing the good, and in preventing evil, but always gentle and prudent. Be steady and lovable, and you will see that God will make you masters even of the heart least disposed to be docile. I know, this is a perfection that is not often found in masters and assistants, who are often still themselves quite young. They are not used to taking the boys the way the boys ought to be taken: they only punish materially, and they get nowhere, or let everything go to ruin, or strike right and wrong alike.
This is why we so often see the evil spread, the discontent spread even among the best ones, and the corrector himself rendered powerless to do any good. So here too I must once more put forward my own experience as an example. I have often come across certain souls so stubborn, so resistant to every good word, that they no longer left me any hope for their salvation, and I already saw the necessity of taking severe measures with them, and they were bent only by Loving-kindness. Sometimes it seems to us that a boy is getting no benefit out of our correction, while in fact he feels in his heart an excellent disposition to come around, and we would ruin this with a misjudged severity, by demanding that the offender make immediate and grave amends for his fault.
He will tell you first of all that he perhaps does not believe he deserved so much for that failing, that he committed it more out of carelessness than out of malice. Often, when I have called some of these little troublemakers to me, treated them with kindness, and asked them why they were showing themselves so undocile, I have been given as my answer that they did it because they were being singled out, as people say, or persecuted by this or that superior. And when I went on to look into the actual state of things calmly and without bias, I had to admit that the offense was much smaller, and sometimes had almost entirely disappeared. So I must say, not without some sorrow, that for the little submission of these boys, we ourselves had always some part of the blame.
I saw that often the very men who demanded silence, punishment, exactness, and prompt blind obedience from their students were the very ones who violated the wholesome warnings that I and other superiors had to give them, and I had to admit that the teachers who pardon nothing in their students tend to pardon everything in themselves. So if we want to know how to command, let us see first to knowing how to obey, and let us seek first to make ourselves loved rather than feared.
When at last repression is necessary, and the system must be changed, because there are certain natures that you have to break with severity, then you must know how to do it in such a way that no sign of passion appears in you. And here naturally comes my second recommendation, which I title thus:
II. Take care to choose the favorable moment for correction
“Everything in its own time,” said the Holy Spirit; and I tell you that when one of these painful necessities arises, great prudence is also needed to know how to seize the moment in which that repression will be wholesome. For the sicknesses of the soul ask to be treated at least as carefully as those of the body. Nothing is more dangerous than a remedy given badly or at the wrong time. A wise doctor waits until the patient is in a condition to bear it, and to that end he waits for the favorable instant. And we can only know this favorable moment from experience, perfected by goodness of heart.
And first of all, wait until you are masters of yourselves; do not let it be seen that you are acting from temper or from rage, because then you would lose your authority, and the punishment would become pernicious.
The classical authors record the famous saying of Socrates to a slave with whom he was displeased: “If I were not angry, I would strike you.” These little observers, for that is what our students are, see, however small and slight the disturbance of your countenance or the change in the tone of your voice, whether it is zeal for our duty, or the heat of passion, that has kindled that fire in us. From that moment on, nothing more is needed to make the punishment lose its fruit: they, young as they are, feel that there is nothing but reason that has the right to correct them.
Secondly, do not punish a boy at the very moment of his fault, for fear that, not yet being able to confess his guilt, master his passion, and feel the full weight of the punishment, he will turn bitter and commit new and graver faults. He must be given time to reflect, to come back into himself, to feel both the wrong he has done and the justice and necessity of the punishment, and so to be put in a position to draw profit from it.
The conduct that the Lord chose to keep with St. Paul, when Paul was still spirans irae atque minarum, “breathing threats and slaughter”, against the Christians, has always made me think; and it seemed to me that I saw there the rule left to us as well, when we meet with certain hearts in revolt against our wishes. The good Jesus does not strike him down at once: but only after a long journey, and after he has had time to reflect on his mission; and far from anyone who might in any way have given him encouragement to persevere in his resolution to persecute the Christians. There, instead, at the gates of Damascus, He shows Himself in all His authority and power, and with strength joined to mildness opens Paul’s mind so that he may know his error. And it was precisely in that moment that the nature of Saul was changed, and from a persecutor he became the Apostle of the Gentiles, and a vessel of election.
It is on this divine example that I would have my dear Salesians form themselves, that with an enlightened patience and a resourceful Loving-kindness they may wait in God’s name for that favorable moment to correct their students.
III. Take away every appearance that you are acting out of passion
When one is punishing, it is hard to keep that calm which is needed to put away every suspicion that one is acting in order to make one’s authority felt, or to vent one’s passion. And the more it is done with vexation, the less one realizes it. The father’s heart, which we must have, condemns this manner of acting. Let us look on those over whom we have to exercise any power as our children. Let us put ourselves almost at their service, like Jesus who came to obey and not to command, ashamed of anything in us that might have the air of a lord, and let us not rule over them except to serve them with greater pleasure.
So Jesus did with his apostles, putting up with them in their ignorance and roughness, in their little fidelity, and treating sinners with a familiarity and friendliness that produced astonishment in some, almost scandal in others, and in many a holy hope of obtaining pardon from God. He told us therefore to learn from Him to be mansueti ed umili di cuore, “meek and humble of heart.”
Since they are our children, let us put away every flare of anger when we have to check their faults, or at least let us moderate it in such a way that it seems wholly stifled. No agitation of soul, no contempt in the eyes, no insulting words on the lips, but let us feel compassion in the moment, hope for the future, and then you will be true fathers, and you will give a true correction.
In certain very serious moments, a recommendation to God, an act of humility before Him, is worth more than a storm of words, words which, on the one hand, produce nothing but harm in those who hear them, and, on the other, no benefit in those who deserve them. Let us remember our Divine Redeemer, who pardoned that city which would not receive Him within its walls, in spite of the urging of those two zealous apostles of His, concerned for His wounded honor, who would gladly have seen Him strike it down with thunder as a just punishment. The Holy Spirit recommends this calm to us in those sublime words of David: Irascimini et nolite peccare, “Be angry, and do not sin.”
And if we see our work often turn out useless, and draw from our labor nothing but thorns and thistles, believe me, my dear ones, we must attribute it to a defective system of discipline. I do not think it is the place here to relate at length how God one day chose to give a solemn and practical lesson to His prophet Elijah, who had a certain something in common with some of us, in his ardor for God’s cause, and in his rash zeal to crush the scandals he saw spreading in the house of Israel. Your Superiors can tell it to you in full, as it is read in the Book of Kings. I will limit myself to the last expression, which fits our case so well: Non in commotione Dominus, “The Lord is not in the whirlwind”; which St. Teresa interpreted: Niente ti turbi, “Let nothing disturb you.”
Our dear and gentle St. Francis, you know, had made it a strict rule for himself that his tongue should not speak when his heart was disturbed. He used to say in fact: “I am afraid of losing in a quarter of an hour that little sweetness which I have managed to accumulate over twenty years drop by drop, like dew, in the vessel of my poor heart. A bee takes many months to make a little honey that a man eats in one mouthful, and besides, what is the use of speaking to one who will not understand?” When he was one day reproached for having treated with too much gentleness a young man who had been gravely at fault with his mother, he said: “This young man was not capable of profiting from my warnings, because the bad disposition of his heart had deprived him of reason and of judgment. A harsh correction would not have helped him, and would have done me great harm, making me act like one who drowns himself while trying to save another.” I have wanted to underline these words of our admirable Patron, that mild and wise master of hearts, so that they may call your attention to them all the more, and that you too may more easily impress them on your memory.
In certain cases, it may help to talk in the presence of the offender with other people about the misfortune of those who lack reason and honor to the point of getting themselves punished. It also helps to suspend the ordinary signs of confidence and friendship until you see that he stands in need of consolation. The Lord consoled me many times with this simple device. Public shame should be reserved as the last remedy.
Sometimes use another authoritative person to warn him, and to tell him what you cannot, but would like to, tell him yourself, someone who can cure him of his shame, and dispose him to come back to you. Look for the one to whom, in his pain, the boy can more freely open his heart, what perhaps he does not dare to do with you, either fearing he will not be believed, or in his pride that he should not. Let these means be like the disciples that Jesus used to send ahead of Himself, that they might prepare the way for Him.
Let it be seen that you want no other submission than the reasonable and necessary kind. Try to bring it about that he condemns himself, and that nothing else remains to do but to mitigate the punishment he has accepted. One last recommendation I would make to you on this grave subject: when you have managed to win this stubborn soul, I beg you not only to leave him the hope of your pardon, but also the hope that he can, by good conduct, wipe out the stain he has made on himself with his failings.
IV. So conduct yourselves as to leave the offender the hope that he can be forgiven
The anxiety and the fear that correction inspires must be avoided, and a word of comfort must be added. To forget, and to make the offender forget, the sad days of his errors is the supreme art of a good educator. We do not read that the good Jesus ever reminded the Magdalene of her wanderings. So too, with the highest and most fatherly delicacy, He led St. Peter to confess and to purge himself of his weakness. The boy too wants to be persuaded that his Superior has good hopes of his amendment, and so to feel himself once more placed by that loving hand on the way of virtue.
You will obtain more with one glance of Loving-kindness, with one word of encouragement that gives confidence to his heart, than with many reproaches, which do nothing but disturb him and crush his strength. I have seen real conversions worked by this system that in any other way seemed absolutely impossible. I know that some of my dearest sons have no shame in admitting publicly that they were won this way to our Congregation, and so to God.
All young people have their dangerous days, and you had them too! And woe to us if we will not try to help them pass through these days quickly and without reproof. Sometimes the mere fact of making them believe that we do not think they did it from malice is enough to keep them from falling into the same fault again. They are guilty, but they want it not to be believed of them. Lucky we are if we know how to use even this means to educate these poor hearts.
Be sure, my dear sons, that this art, which seems so easy and even contrary to a good outcome, will make your ministry fruitful, and will win for you certain hearts that were, and would for a long time have remained, incapable not only of a happy outcome but even of well-founded hope.
V. Which punishments are to be used, and by whom
But are we never to use punishments at all? I know, my dear ones, that the Lord chose to compare himself to a watchful rod, virga vigilans, to hold us back from sin even through the fear of penalties. We too, then, can and must imitate sparingly and wisely the conduct that God chose to mark out for us with this powerful figure. Let us use this rod, then, but let us know how to do it with intelligence and Loving-kindness, so that our punishment may be of such a kind as to make better.
Let us remember that force punishes the vice, but does not heal the vicious. One does not cultivate a plant by bending it with rough force, and so one does not educate the will by weighing it down with too heavy a yoke.
Here, then, is a list of the punishments which alone I would have used among us. One of the most effective means of moral repression is the displeased, severe, and grieved look of the Superior, which lets the offender see, for the little heart that he has, that he is in disfavor, and which can prompt him to repentance and amendment. Private and fatherly correction. Not too many reproaches; and make him feel his parents’ displeasure, and the hope of rewards. In time he will feel obliged to show gratitude and even generosity.
If he falls again, do not be short on Loving-kindness, go on to more serious and decisive warnings. In this way you can with justice make him see the difference between his own conduct and the way he is being treated, showing him how he repays so much indulgence, so much care to save him from disgrace and from punishments. But no humiliating expressions. Let it be shown that you have good hope in him, declaring yourselves ready to forget everything from the moment he gives signs of better conduct.
For more serious failings, you may come to the following punishments: dining standing at his place; or at a separate table; or eating standing in the middle of the refectory; and, lastly, at the door of the refectory. But in all these cases let the offender be given everything that is given at the companions’ table. A serious punishment is to deprive him of recreation, but never to put him in the sun, or in bad weather, in such a way that he may suffer harm by it.
Not to call on him for one day in class may be a serious punishment, but do not extend it longer. In the meantime, let him be moved by some other means to do penance for his failing.
Now what shall I say about pensi, written impositions? This kind of punishment is, unfortunately, too frequent. I wanted to find out, on this point, what celebrated educators have said. There are some who approve of it, and some who blame it as a thing useless and dangerous both for the master and for the pupil. I leave you free, however, to act in this, warning you that for the master there is great danger of going to excess without any gain, and that it gives the student occasion to grumble, and to find much pity for himself on account of the master’s apparent persecution. The penso rehabilitates nothing, and is always a pain and a shame.
I know that one of our confreres used to give as a penso the study of some passage of poetry, either sacred or profane, and by this useful means he obtained both greater attention and some intellectual profit. Then it was verified that omnia cooperantur in bonum, “all things work together unto good”, for those who seek God alone, His glory, and the salvation of souls. This confrere of yours used to convert with his pensi. I think it was a special blessing of God, and a case rather unique than rare, but he succeeded because he made himself seen as full of Loving-kindness.
But let no one ever make use of the so-called camerino di riflessione, the “reflection cell,” or solitary lock-up. There is no harm into which the boy may not be cast by the rage and the despair that fall on him under a punishment of that kind. The devil takes from this kind of punishment a most violent power over him, and drives him to grave faults, almost as if to avenge himself on the one who chose to punish him that way.2
The punishment must be a remedy: so we must be in a hurry to leave it off, once we have obtained the double aim of driving the evil away and of preventing its return. Succeeding in pardoning, we obtain also the precious effect of healing over the wound made in the boy’s heart: he sees that he has not lost his Superior’s good will, and he sets himself again with courage to his duty.
In the punishments mentioned above, only failings against the school’s discipline have been kept in view. But in those painful cases where some pupil should give serious scandal, or commit an offense against the Lord, then let him be brought immediately to the Superior, who, in his prudence, will take whatever effective measures he judges suitable. And if anyone should go on being deaf to all these wise means of amendment, and should be a bad example and a scandal, then he must be sent away without remission, but in such a way, as far as possible, as to provide for his honor. This is obtained either by counseling the young man himself to ask his parents to take him away, or by directly advising the parents to change schools, in the hope that elsewhere their son will do better. This act of Loving-kindness usually has a good effect in every case, and leaves, even in these painful occasions, a grateful memory in the parents and in the students.
Finally, it remains for me to tell you from whom the order, the time, and the manner of punishing must come.
This must always be the Rector, but without his himself having to appear. To him belongs private correction, because he can more easily reach certain less sensitive hearts. To him belongs general and even public correction. And to him belongs the application of the punishment, but without his ordinarily having to carry it out or impose it himself. For this reason I would have no one take it on himself to punish without the prior counsel or approval of his Rector, who alone determines the time, the manner, and the kind of the punishment. Let no one withdraw himself from this loving dependence, and let no one look for pretexts to evade his oversight.3 There must be no excuse for making exceptions to this rule of the greatest importance.
Let us be obedient, then, to this recommendation that I leave you, and God will bless and console you for your virtue.
Remember that education is a matter of the heart, and that God alone is its Master, and we will succeed in nothing, unless God teaches us the art of it, and puts the keys of it into our hands. Let us therefore strive in every way, and also with this humble and entire dependence, to take possession of this fortress, which is always closed to severity and harshness. Let us labor to make ourselves loved, to instill the sense of duty and the holy fear of God, and we will see, with wonderful ease, the doors of so many hearts opening up, and joining themselves to us to sing the praises and the blessings of Him who chose to make Himself our model, our way, our example in everything, but especially in the education of the young.
Pray for me, and believe me always in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Day of St. Francis [de Sales], 1883
Your most affectionate Father and Friend, Fr. Giovanni Bosco
Provenance. Critical text in Pietro Braido (ed.), Don Bosco educatore: scritti e testimonianze, 3rd ed. with the collaboration of Antonio da Silva Ferreira, Francesco Motto, and José Manuel Prellezo. Istituto Storico Salesiano, Fonti, Serie prima, n. 9, Rome: LAS, 1997, pp. 317–333. The circular remained unpublished until 1935; the Salesian editors describe it as drafted at Valdocco in 1883 by close collaborators of Don Bosco, drawing on the pedagogical writings of Teppa, Monfat, and Rollin, and issued under Bosco’s name with his approval as the standing instruction to Salesian Rectors. The voice is Bosco’s; the editorial provenance is collegial.
See the Regolamento per le Case della Società di S. Francesco di Sales, the Rule of the Houses of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, of which the 1877 Preventive System treatise was the prefatory text.↩︎
In the fear that, in some school, by rare exception and absolute necessity, it should be thought necessary to use the camerino, here are the precautions I would have taken: let the catechist or some other Superior go often to visit the poor offender, and with words of Loving-kindness and compassion try to pour oil on that embittered heart. Let his state be pitied; let pains be taken to help him understand that all the Superiors are sorry to have had to use such an extreme punishment; let him be brought to ask pardon, to make acts of submission, and to ask that one more trial of his amendment be made. If it appears that the punishment is having its effect, let it be lifted even ahead of time, and you will surely succeed in winning his heart.↩︎
Teachers or assistants must never put any offender outside the classroom. In the case of a failing, let him be sent under escort to the Superior.↩︎