The Golden Jubilee

Coming as it did towards the end of a period of stress and changes, the Golden Jubilee Year of St. Xavier's College and School was celebrated on a modest scale in 1919 - with a religious service of thanksgiving, a social gathering of old and present students, the staging of 'Hamlet', the jubilee dinner with its inevitable speeches and the athletic meet.

His Excellency, the Governor of Bombay, Sir George Lloyd, presided over the social gathering and eulogised the services of the Jesuit Fathers in these words : "It is 350 years of strenuous effort in education since the Fathers first landed in Bandra. They have achieved this, today, that they can count, and count safely, on the support of any and every government in India... "

There were no spectacular displays, and no grandiose structures planned to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the College. In 1920, however, there was the addition of the third floor to the hostel to provide more accommodation to students coming from outside Bombay. One result of the publicity accruing from the Jubilee was to focus country-wide attention on the College so that more and more students wanted to join this renowned centre of learning.

The admissions in 1920 show how the College was becoming cosmopolitan in its composition : students came from as far East as Calcutta and Rangoon, as far South as Mangalore and as far North as Sind. It was hardly surprising that to the earlier languages taught, six more were added, viz. Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Arabic, Hebrew and Portuguese. Verily, the College was well on the way towards becoming another Babel !