Trivia about Xavier School
Many Jesuit missionaries who left China in 1949 found a new home and mission in the overseas Chinese community of the Philippines. Eventually, through sheer determination, perseverance, and faith, an international 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, welcoming its initial batch of students – 170 children of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines. The school was named after St. Francis Xavier, the original inspiration behind Jesuit missions in China—pursued but unwillingly left unfinished by the school’s Jesuit founders. The school was also named after Paul Hsu Kuangchi (Xu Guangqi), a 16th-century Chinese nobleman and high court official who converted to Christianity and supported its spread in China.
The Jesuit hallmark of academic excellence quickly established 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, evolving into one of Manila’s most dynamic Chinese-Filipino communities today. The present campus is a complex of 12 buildings housing over 4000 students from Nursery to High School.
True to its identity as a missionary school, Xavier has been educating Chinese Filipinos from the very beginning, although never in an exclusive manner, as evidenced by the significant and still growing number of Filipinos among its students and alumni. Xavier School understood its unique mission as one of evangelizing the local Chinese and promoting their integration into Philippine society. It was a task of building two bridges: the bridge between Christ and the Chinese Filipinos (Evangelization), and the bridge between the Chinese community and the larger Philippine society (Integration).
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, scholarships to students who qualify, but cannot afford a Xavier education.
For the past fifty years, the school has been providing quality Jesuit education and formation by forming its students into “men for others” guided by the six C’s, the six Xavier values that define the Xaverian: Competence, Culture, Compassion, Conscience, Character, and Community. Xavier School’s motto is “Luceat Lux” or “Let your light shine!” capturing the school’s vision of developing “men fully alive, endowed with a passion for justice and the skills for development.
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