History

The Beginnings of Jesuit Education

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, and also for the efficient organisation of their studies.

Much has been written about the history and characteristic features of Jesuit schools but it is sufficient to note here 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.

For further information about the Jesuit Educational philosophy, please click here.

The establishment and expansion of Xavier College

The first Jesuit school established in Melbourne was St Patrick’s College in East Melbourne. St Patrick’s opened on 6 August 1855 but did not come under the rule of the Jesuits until October 1865.

St Patrick’s was located on a smallish site and it gradually became clear that a more spacious site was needed to house increasing enrolments and boarders. Thus the construction of the first building for Xavier College began in 1872 on Mornane’s Paddock at Kew, the present site of the Senior Campus. The property extended at that time from Denmark Street to Glenferrie Road. The school opened on Sunday 10 February 1878 with Father Thomas Cahill SJ as its first Rector.

The early years of the school saw a great deal of building: the South Wing in 1878; the beginning of the main oval in 1883; the West Wing in 1888; 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 1890s came only after these buildings had been completed. Xavier survived these challenging times and became a member of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria in 1901, taking over the position held up to this time by St Patrick’s.

The next major development was the purchase in 1920 of Studley House in Studley Park Road, Kew, by TM Burke, a Catholic businessman. Mr Burke presented Studley House to Archbishop Daniel Mannix, who passed it on to the Jesuits at Xavier College. Studley Hall, the first Xavier Preparatory School, opened in 1921 and was renamed Burke Hall in 1926 as a result of another gift from the Burke family – a Chapel donated by Mrs Burke in memory of her brother Francis Brady who attended Xavier between 1904 and 1909.

Xavier College’s Golden Jubilee in 1928 was marked by the initial collection of funds to build a Chapel at the Senior Campus as a memorial to the 53 past students who has been killed in the First World War. The chapel opened in 1934.

A second Preparatory School, Kostka Hall, opened at Brighton in 1937 in two historic buildings, Maritima and Marchwood (also known as St John’s).

From the late 1940s until the present time, building programs have been frequent. Amongst these have been the Rigg Wing at the Senior Campus in 1951; the Senior Campus East Wing in 1958; the teaching wing at Kostka Hall in 1959; the Keenan Wing and the Montague Theatre at the Senior Campus in 1968; Kostka Hall extensions in 1969; Burke Hall’s spacious Year 5 block in the mid-1990s; the Senior Campus Crosbie Wing during the same period; the Stephenson Centre in 1993 which houses areas for a wide range of indoor sports as well as facilities for Health and Physical Education classes; and more recently, the Early Years Centres at both Burke Hall (2002) and Kostka Hall (2005) and the wonderful Eldon Hogan Performing Arts Centre and the Betty Ryan Science Complex (2008) at the Senior Campus. A new classroom block for Years 5 & 6 has just been completed at the Burke Hall campus.

At present, plans are being drawn up on each campus for new buildings to help the school meet the range of educational challenges facing Australian society in the third millennium.

To view the Xavier College Strategic Plan 2008-2012, please click here.