First Beginnings
The First Beginnings: the first two students of St. Xavier's College came from a group of six, who appeared for the University Matriculation examination in 1868 from St. Mary's Institution. So confident were their teachers about the intellectual attainments of the six students - all of them were successful - that they applied for the School's recognition in December, 1868, as a College in Arts. Fr. Joseph Antony Willy, the first Principal of the College from 1869 to 1873, and three other Jesuit Fathers actually began to lecture to the two students on January 7, 1869, just before the recognition of the Bombay University was granted on 30th January with retrospective effect from 1st January.
The first three graduates of the College - one joined in 1870 - received their degrees in 1871. They form the vanguard of an educated army of thousands launched upon the world in almost a century and a half; a vast army of useful citizens, leading honest and honourable lives, among whom are men of distinction in State and Union Cabinets, in the Catholic Priesthood, in the Judiciary, in the Administrative Services, in the Legislatures, in the Medical and Teaching professions and in the Engineering and Commercial lines.