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The
origins of Xavier College lie in the 450
year old Jesuit educational enterprise which
was begun by St Ignatius Loyola, the 16th
century Spanish courtier and soldier. His
conversion to a more radical Christian life
was based on a number of profound religious
insights which he expressed in a remarkably
influential book, The Spiritual Exercises.
The central themes of his spirituality included
a concern not merely for the service of
God but for God's greater glory; a passionate
loyalty to Jesus Christ through whom God
entered our human history; a boundless enthusiasm
for detecting God's presence in the most
ordinary situations of daily life; and a
confidence that a process of regular and
prayerful reflection would lead to a clearer
understanding of how exactly God's Kingdom
could best be spread in our world.
He and a number of his close friends formed
the Society of Jesus which received the
Pope's approval on 27 September, 1540. Ignatius
soon became convinced that the work of education
was a most suitable means for the furthering
of Jesuit goals both in Europe and in those
parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas in
which his men began to work. So Jesuit schools
were set up in many countries around the
world and soon became known for the encouragement
given to their students to pursue the highest
possible academic standards which they could
achieve as well as for the efficient organisation
of their studies.
Much
has been written about the history and characteristic
features of Jesuit schools but, for our
purposes, it is sufficient to note that
there are now some 2,000 Jesuit educational
establishments throughout the world which
try to serve more than one and a half million
students. Nowadays, the gifted involvement
of numerous non-Jesuit teachers makes these
schools a more efficient apostolic instrument
than before. It soon became clear that a
more spacious site was needed to house boarders
and so the construction of the first building
for Xavier College began in 1872 at Mornane's
Paddock at Kew, our present site. The property
then extended from Denmark Street to Glenferrie
Road. The school opened on Sunday 10 February
1878. Father Thomas Cahill, S.J. was the
first Rector.
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The early years of the school saw a great deal
of building: the South Wing; the beginning of
the main oval in 1883; the West Wing and, worthy
of special mention, one of Xavier's truly individual
features, the Great Hall, in 1890. Fortunately,
the difficult financial period of the early 1890's
came only after these buildings had been completed.
Nonetheless, the number of students declined and
the official correspondence of Jesuit superiors
was unusually pessimistic in tone. The school
survived, however, and St Patrick's College's
membership of the Associated Public Schools of
Victoria was transferred to Xavier in 1901.
The
next major development was the purchase in 1920
of Studley House in Studley Park Road by T.M.
Burke, a Catholic businessman. He presented it
to Archbishop Daniel Mannix who gave it to Xavier.
Studley Hall, the first Preparatory School, opened
in 1921 and was renamed Burke Hall several years
later. Its Chapel was built as another gift from
the Burke family in 1926. Xavier's Golden Jubilee
was marked by the initial collection of funds
for a chapel as a memorial to the numerous past
students who has been killed in the First World
War. It opened in 1934. A second Preparatory School,
Kostka Hall, opened at Brighton in 1937 in two
older buildings, Maritima and Marchwood (also
know as St John's).
From
the late 1940s until the present time building
programs have been frequent. Some of the results
of these efforts have been the Rigg Wing at the
Senior Campus in 1951; the East Wing in 1958;
the teaching wing at Kostka Hall in 1959; the
Keenan Wing and the Montague Theatre in 1968;
Kostka Hall extensions in 1969; Burke Hall's spacious
Year 5 block in the mid-1990's; the Crosbie Wing
at the Senior Campus at the same time; the remarkable
Stephenson Centre in 1993 which houses areas for
a wide range of indoor sports as well as facilities
for Health and Physical Education classes. At
present plans are being drawn up on each campus
for new buildings to help the school meet the
range of educational challenges facing our Australian
society in the third millennium.
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