Xavier School - History

History

Many Jesuit missionaries who was obliged to leave China in 1949 found a new home and mission in the overseas Chinese community of the Philippines. To facilitate their evangelization of the Chinese community, the Jesuits decided to set up a school in downtown Manila. Begging for donations by going door-to-door in Chinatown, Fr. Jean Desautels, S.J., a French-Canadian Jesuit who was part of the China mission, worked with Basilio King and Ambrose Chiu, two Chinese businessmen, both Ateneo de Manila alumni, who wanted to help set up an Ateneo de Chino.

At 3:30 pm on December 15, 1955, Fr. Desautels closed the deal and purchased the land, an hour and a half before the 5:00 pm deadline agreed by Fr. Desautels and the seller of the land. Eventually, the group of Jesuits led by the late Frs. Jean Desautels, Louis Papilla, and Cornelius Pineau set up Xavier School (Kuang Chi).

In 1956, in a converted warehouse in Echague, Manila, the school opened its doors to its initial batch of students – 170 children of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines. The school was named after St. Francis Xavier, one of the first leaders of Jesuit missions in China, which was pursued but unwillingly left unfinished by the school’s Jesuit founders. The school was also named after Paul Hsü Kuangchi (Pinyin: Xŭ Guāngqĭ; Simplified Chinese: 徐光启; Traditional Chinese: 徐光啓), a 16th-century Chinese nobleman and high court official who converted to Christianity and supported its spread in China.

Being a Jesuit school helped establish the school’s reputation. In 1960, Xavier School transferred to a 7-hectare property in Greenhills, San Juan, then only an area of rice fields and grasslands. Within a decade, the outlying areas became home to many Xavier families. The campus is a complex of 12 buildings housing over 4,000 students from Nursery to High School.

Xavier has been educating Chinese Filipinos from the very beginning. Part of its mission is evangelizing the local Chinese and promoting their integration into Philippine society.

Unlike other Chinese schools in the Philippines, Xavier School was established as an all-boys school, a Filipino school with an English curriculum that integrated Chinese studies. Through its Grant-in-Aid program, the school offers financially challenged but otherwise qualified students the opportunity of a Xavier education.