It's a brand name, now: Xavier's. It stands for quality, and for age that fails to grow old — like Tata, Toyota, Apple, IBM. And what makes it endure is not the name itself, but the people who carry it forward.
I can vouch for this story because it was told to me by a Jesuit friend who heard it "from the horse's mouth." My friend's friend was travelling by an Asiad bus from Pune to Bombay and he found that the one sitting next to him was feeling very discomfited. He raised an alarm, got the driver to stop the bus, and attended to the one who apparently was having a stroke.
After medical attention was given, the bus moved on, but another passenger nudged close to my friend's friend and said: "You must have passed out from Xavier's!" On being told that it was true, the passenger continued: "It was easy to guess. I too passed out from Xavier's. When there we were taught to take care of others; it was just not studies."
The friend was later to learn that this passenger who had spoken to him was the same brave officer of the Bombay Police, Ashok Kamte, killed by a terrorist's bullet on 26/11.
"It's a brand name, now: Xavier's. Even in Kipling's Kim, the hero, orphaned early, was placed in 'Xavier's' — a term whose connotation all could easily grasp."
All over India there are schools, colleges, and professional institutions that are called Xavier's, but the brand name is only associated with those run by Jesuits in nearly all the major cities of India. It stands for quality, and for age that fails to grow old. Brand names do not need much advertising; it is taken for granted that they are well known and they will deliver good and enduring products.
In the case that we are dealing with, everything the name connotes goes back ultimately to Francis Xavier. There is class and durability in all that he was and did. He came from an aristocratic Navarrese family that survived the political turmoil of the time, and could afford the University of Paris — the most sought after in Europe — where he excelled in both athletics and studies, and, most fortuitously, came under the influence of Ignatius of Loyola.
Soon after his vows as a Jesuit, he was requested by the Portuguese King to visit his domains in the East as the Apostolic Nuncio with full plenipotentiary powers. What he accomplished there — with incessant travels that took him even to Japan — within mere ten years, is legendary.
"There was a remarkable completeness in the personality of Francis Xavier — the asceticism of Spanish spirituality and the broad humanity of the Renaissance. He could compete with the poverty of the poor in India, and strut in fine silks with the best of the Japanese nobility."
The spirit of Francis Xavier and of the earliest Jesuits led to the famed Ratio Studiorum (Latin: "Plan of Studies"), formulated in 1591 — less than 50 years after the death of Ignatius. It was a graded programme that included not only Greek, Latin, theology and philosophy, but also heavy doses of the humanities, mathematics, astronomy and the sciences.
Wholeness was achieved by the simultaneous reading of the classics and modern literature; creativity by discipline and rigour of study and by the free play of emotions in disputations, drama, music and literary compositions; and above all, the vision and zeal were provided by the Jesuit ethos shaped by The Spiritual Exercises and The Constitutions.
This brand's name is not enhanced by itself but by those who use it — the many Christian and non-Christian students and teachers who claim to be Xavierites and who, without self-consciousness, live out the ethos of their alma mater (Latin: "nourishing mother").
Distinguished personalities across every field who embody the Xavier ethos of excellence, integrity and public service.
