CITY (VILLAGE, REPUBLIC, COMMUNITY) OF BOYS. - An institution of education or re-education for the moral and professional formation of children, orphans or vagrants, victims of abandonment by their own families, by their environment, by depraved companions; to whom were added numerous other victims, in the same condition, produced by the Second World War.
I. HISTORY
The first C. of the r. was established in the United States at Omaha (Nebraska) by Fr. E. G. Flanagan (v.), in 1917, who borrowed 90 dollars in order to pay the first month's rent. It began with 5 boys, who by Christmas 1917 had grown to 25 and increased more and more as time went on. Now Boys-Town extends over 3 sq km, numbers about a thousand young citizens, has its own post office, its own municipal government, its own regular court, which meets every Monday; schools, workshops, houses, farms, churches and an arena with a capacity of 2,500 seats and 8,500 spectators. The work, which disconcerted physicians and students of psychology, priests, seasoned policemen, economists and statesmen, found its overwhelming strength in the love of God and of children.
At Trogen, in Switzerland, the first pavilion of the "Pestalozzi Village" was inaugurated in Sept. 1946, under the care of the United Nations, intended to receive war orphans of the various nations. The children are divided into groups or "families" of 16-20 persons; each group occupies its own premises, under the guidance of "heads of family," of teachers and educators of the same nationality and language as the boys. Instruction is given in the pupils' mother tongue.
In imitation of these towns, many other numerous communities of boys arose throughout Europe, which in 1948 came together in the Fédération internationale des Communautés d'enfants (F.I.C.E.), which comprises all institutions for boys that aim at these objectives: a) to free the child from fear, the source of distrust and of spite; b) to develop his affectivity in creative activities, parallel to school duties; c) to give him a sense of security with an education close to that of the family; d) to make him understand the mechanisms of social life through active and responsible participation in the work and organizations of the community; e) to save him from group egocentrism, educating him to love of objectivity and to understanding that is also international.
In Italy there are more than 20 c. of the r., almost all founded by priests with the help of Italian and foreign benefactors, especially of the "American Relief for Italy" (A.R.I.).
The "Villaggio dei fanciulli" at S. Marinella (near Civitavecchia) arose in 1945 through the work of Msgr. J. Patrick Carroll-Abbing and don Antonio Rivolta, on an area of 20 sq km, and presents a very democratic organization and regime. Every terminology of boarding school or barracks being banished, the dormitory is called the "hotel"; the refectory the "restaurant," the bursar's office the "emporium." The citizens know no discipline other than that imposed by the assembly, by their self-government and by the civic sense of responsibility. There are the offices of mayor, questor, judge, rotated every month; the junta, which meets three or four times a week. Each one may leave whenever he wishes; when he returns he is received again; all that is required is that, as long as he remains there, he observe the statutes as a loyal citizen. Study and work are paid with a special currency, called "merit," with which one pays the hotel, the restaurant, clothes, etc.; during the vacation it is also convertible into money; and thus it becomes a means of contact with the outside.
The "Republic of the r." of Sassi (Turin), which arose in 1946, through the work of d. Arbinolo, presents instead a somewhat less democratic organization, because, according to its statutes, it is governed on the model of a presidential republic, of which the founder is president for life, and to him is reserved the approval or disapproval of any decision of the mayor, of the general assembly, etc.
More or less according to these two types the other c. of the r. are organized, which arose at Rome, Naples, Bari, Lanciano, Palermo, Piacenza, Cuneo.
II. THE INFORMING PRINCIPLES
The success of the c. dei r. is due above all to the pedagogical principles by which it is inspired, harmoniously fusing together the awareness of the irreducible autonomy of the person, the respect owed to the freedom of the child, and a vivid sense of personal and social duty, which must resolve itself in a self-formation strongly enlightened, felt and constant. This can be reduced to these three formulas: 1) every child can become a gentleman. Anyone who were to understand the formula in an absolute sense and exclude every intervention of supernatural Grace would evidently be in error, because experience and faith teach that human nature is born with the stigmata of original sin and suffers its consequences in the physical order and in the moral order. Equally in error would be anyone who, on the contrary, held human nature to be so corrupted as to be incapable of redeeming itself. The pedagogical formula, however, rightly interpreted, means that a middle way must be kept between the dreamy optimism of J. J. Rousseau and the cruel pessimism of Baius and Jansenius. It is necessary, therefore, first of all to believe and to have trust in the child, in his moral and supernatural possibilities of redemption and rehabilitation, which animate his effort aimed at realizing them. 2) One cannot educate the child without his cooperation. An education that makes everything depend on abstract formulas and precepts, repeated to the point of boredom, and perhaps imposed by force, achieves nothing; education is essentially an interior work, both on the natural plane and on the supernatural plane of Grace; and the child must give his active cooperation, while education must create the environment favorable to this cooperation, encourage it, arouse it, maintain it. 3) Children are the best collaborators for the education of their companions. An education that truly wishes to find an echo in the souls of children and young people must feel their problems, impressions, reactions and difficulties, with the same sensitivity with which they feel them. This is not so simple in an adult, because he would have, so to speak, to renew himself entirely in order to reduce himself to their level. The child, on the other hand, has no such need; he already feels as his companions feel, and therefore his educational work is more natural and spontaneous. By this it is not meant that the action of adults, especially of the family and of parents, is superfluous. On the contrary, the presence and action of the older ones is indispensable, because the younger, given his inexperience and weakness, has a vivid need of guidance, of good example, of support, of love.
III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY
In the face of this new conquering movement and these new pedagogical structures, Christian pedagogy has much to encourage, when the informing principles are rightly interpreted and practiced. The Christian, in fact, must know that the life of the child is the life of a son of God, who can bear within himself a supernatural life through Grace, and sustained and strengthened by this can climb the highest peaks of heroism. He also knows that God is love, and that therefore the Christian educator must imitate God in this respect as well. These children who arrive at the c. dei r. dirty, vicious, undisciplined, perverted, who know how to talk back, lord it over others, rebel, are nonetheless loved, as they are, by God, who knows their capacity to respond to a disinterested call. On the other hand, the doctrine of original sin and its consequences offers the educator the stimulus to cooperate with Grace so that the pupil may become aware of his condition as a sinner and as a creature; whereby absolute autonomy is illusory and vain, and there is the duty to free oneself from the slavery of evil and sin in order to return to being a son of God. Furthermore, Christian doctrine places before us the social spirit with which every son of God must be animated: Jesus gave himself even to death; and the pupil too must form the inner conviction that he must live not only for himself, but also for others, even, if need be, to the point of total self-giving. Grace makes us all brothers of Jesus, whence a spirit of universal brotherhood within us.
Bibliography5 works
Celestino Testore