The Salesians of Don Bosco Kolkata Province

John tried immediately to do good to the boys around. When a visiting circus arrived in the nearby hills, John went and sat in the front row to watch them. He studied the jugglers' tricks and the acrobats' secrets. One Sunday evening, John gave his first performance in front of the kids from the neighbouring houses. He performed balancing miracles with pots and pans on the tip of his nose. Then he jumped up on a rope strung between two trees, and walked on it to the warm applause of the young spectators. Before the grandiose conclusion, he repeated for them the sermon he heard at the morning Mass, and invited all to pray. The games and the Word of God began transforming his little friends, who willingly prayed in his company.

Little John understood that to do good for so many boys he needed to study and become a priest. But his brother Anthony, already 18 and an unlettered peasant, did not want to hear of this... He tried to kill John's dreams - he threw away his books and belted him.

On a cold morning of February 1827, John left his home and went to look for work as a farm-servant because life at home was unbearable on account of the continuous quarrels with Anthony. He was only 12 years old. He worked on the Moglia farm, near Moncucco, for three years. He led the cattle to pasture, milked the cows, put fresh hay in the manger, and ploughed the fields with the oxen. During the long nights of wintertime and during summer, sitting under the trees while the cows grazed nearby, he went back to his books and studies.

Anthony married three years later. John returned home and resumed his schooling, first at Castelnuovo and then at Chieri. To provide for his needs he learnt different trades: that of a tailor, a blacksmith, a barman. He even coached students after classes. He was intelligent and brilliant, and the best students of the school flocked around him. With them he founded what was known as "The Merry Club". At 20 years of age, John Bosco took the most important decision of his life: he entered the Seminary. There followed six years of intense studies after which he was ordained priest.

John Bosco becomes Don Bosco
On 5 June 1841, the archbishop of Turin ordained John Bosco a priest. Now Don Bosco (in Italy the title given to a priest is "Don") was finally able to dedicate himself full-time to the abandoned boys he had seen in his dreams. He went to look for them in the streets of Turin. On those first Sundays - says young Michael Rua, one of the boys he met in those early months - Don Bosco went through the city to see for himself the moral conditions of the young. He was shocked. The outskirts of the city were zones of turmoil and revolution, places of desolation. Unemployed, sad and ready to do anything, adolescents caused problems on the streets. Don Bosco could see them betting at street corners, their faces hard and determined, as if to get their way at any cost.