"High up on the hill of Edyah
Stands the home our hearts adore,
Proud above the pride of palm trees
And the far Sea's softened roar"
What the College Has Come to Be
". . . . the greatest glory of Mangalore, let us say it humbly and thankfully." This was what Fr A. Ambruzzi S. J., the tenth Rector of St Aloysius College, Mangalore, said of it fifty- two years ago ; and in the centenary year of the College, the writer of the present history has no hesitation at all in saying it again : ". . . . the greatest glory of Mangalore, let us say it humbly and thankfully."
In the course of a hundred years, St. Aloysius College has traveled [as it were] very far. In 1880, it was only an Upper Secondary School meant to prepare students for the Matriculation Examination. Functioning in a single building, it counted on the opening day [January 12, 1880 ] a hundred and fifty students on its rolls and just two teachers [ Fr Jos. Willy S. J., and Scholastic Postlewhite S.J. ] on its staff. It grew to be a Second Grade College in the third year. In mean time, in the fifth year, it had come to have a Middle School [or Lower Secondary ] Section added on to its Upper Secondary Department. In the twenty-eighth year, it came to have a Primary Section tagged on its Middle School Department.
In the centenary year, the world of St. Aloysius College includes in its grand sweep a First Grade College, a First Grade Evening College, a High School, an Evening High School, a Higher Primary School [ or Middle School ] and a College of Business Administration. Having nineteen buildings of its own [ including among others the Centenary Commemmoration Building, the College Students' Recreation Centre, the old Academy Hall, the College Auditorium, two workshops, the buildings serving as Staff Quarters for a good number of the College teachers, the three blocks of the former "Down College" providing residential accommodation for quite a few Middle School teachers and other employees, the three hostels and the former Boarding House where the vocationalised courses are currently held] the College now counts several students on the rolls of the several institutions in its fold (as against the original number of 150 students) and 148 teachers (as against the original number of two teachers) !
Yet , even in the centenary year, after the College has cone to have such a plurality of buildings, when one says, "St Aloysius College," what invariably "flashes upon the inward eye" (bringing to the mind Poet Saldanha's lines quoted above) is that 1885 building on the top of Edyah Hill, 'the Acropolis of Mangalore', that old two-storeyed building 496 feet long, with the magnificent Chapel and the ornate Academy Hall (each 118'x50') at it two ends, and the Tower rising from its middle, the whole edifice designed some-what after the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Rome. This happens because, for long years, with its tower it was the tallest building in Mangalore; and though, in course of time, taller buildings have come up on all sides, to this day it is the College tower that rises higher into the Mangalore air than any other building in the city on account of its natural advantage of being perched on the top of Edyah Hill. Moreover there is nothing else comparable to it in terms of majestic lay-out and sheer size in Mangalore.
In a hundred and twenty three years, how many able priests, administrators, diplomats, politicians, judges, advocates, doctors, engineers, scientists, industrialists, manufacturers, businessmen, civil servants, men of the defence Services, teachers, writers, journalists, artists and social workers has not the College given to the country? Therefore what the College has meant to the country in general is not irrelevant to a consideration of what the College has come to be. But, in relation to the second element of the title of the present history, what is more important is what the College has meant to Dakshina Kannada in particular.
If today Dakshina Kannada is an honoured name on the map of India, it is chiefly on account of its spectacular progress in education; and this progress is to be reckoned not merely in terms of the large number of the Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Colleges (both those given to general education and those given to professional education) in the district, nor merely in terms of the very good examination results in these institutions (always above the State averages), but also and chiefly, in terms of the catholicity, modernity and urbanity of the people of the district and their admirable enterprise. The credit for this progress must largely be given to St. Aloysius College. For one thing, it was the only First Grade College for men students in this district for nearly sixty years; for another, when the district went in for a rapid multiplication of High Schools and of Colleges in the first four decades and the text two decades respectively of this century, the first contingents of educations personnel in those institutions had to be, by and large, the products of St. Aloysius College.
Even when their subsequent streams of educators did not inevitably have to be Aloysians, these institutions continued to be indebted to St. Aloysius College in another way : they chose to emulate it in some important matters. Thus Dr. T. Madhava Pai, himself an Old Boy and the far-renowned maker of the vast and varied educational complex at Manipal, who founded not only several Professional Colleges of acknowledged excellence but also six very good Colleges of Arts, Science and Commerce (including M.G.M. College, Udupi, the most formidable rival of St. Aloysius College for the title of the College par excellence of Dakshina Kannada) always looked upon St. Aloysius College as well worth the tribute of emulation. We have it on the authority of a bulletin of Manipal Academy of General Education that, "to Dr. Pai, the educational activities of the Missionaries were a source of inspiration; and today the managers as well as the teachers in his institutions hail the premier college of the district, viz., St. Aloysius College, as a model institution so far as academic standards and discipline are concerned. Although each one of these Colleges has its own individuality, each secretly cherishes the desire to be compared (of course, favourably) with the College on top of Edyah Hill.
It would be easy to pile up the evidence of the excellent image that the College has projected of itself in the public mind in the course of a hundred years. But, for want of space, the present history has to be content with just one more piece of evidence. Rajesh Mallya, a mere High School lad, gives this interesting piece of information in an article in The Littleman : "There was a time when the boys of St. Aloysius were admitted to medical colleges in Ceylon without being required to take the Entrance Examination, which it was necessary for the Ceylonese and other boys to take. Of course, the High School lad, being unexposed to the sophisticated requirements of documentation, cites no authority for his information. The present writer, however, likes to believe that the lad's information is correct. Even if it is not so, it should serve at least as a pointer to the splendid image of the Alma Mater in popular imagination and also to the very understandable proneness of her admirers to invent legends about her, seeing that her reputation is so good and so well - founded that almost any legend about her would gain credence.
Again, consider the following from the pen of the same Fr Sergeant: "My first day of teaching was a most pleasant one, and a type of all the days I spent in teaching till I left India . I never had a dull day, and until my health failed in 1886, I doubt if I was absent from class for a single hour during the whole period of six happy years. The example of the Jesuit Fathers in not being absent from class except when their health failed has been naturally very telling. Hence the lay teachers, too have generally been very scrupulous in this regard. The Casual Leave account of many a teacher has remained not drawn upon at all, in many a year. Many a teacher has retired without getting to know the rules concerning such varieties of lease as Commuted Leave, Half-Pay Leave, Extraordinary Leave, and what not. Hence, Fr A. Ambruzzi's observation in the Annual Report for 1935-36: "It is a most pleasant duty to thank all the members of the teaching and clerical staff for their unstinted labour throughout the year. In spite of family and other difficulties, some did not absent themselves from work for a single hour." Hence, again, Fr A.P. Menezes observation in the Annual Report for 1962-63: "This Institution has not lacked devoted teachers who joined service when young and who have grown old with it. They love teaching so much that they would not appreciate the cancellation of even one working hour in a term. Their first and last lesson is a lesson in discipline and order. The younger men too have quickly fallen in line with the old and imbibed the same spirit of devotion to work and personal interest in their pupils."
Mr John Monteiro, who in the sixties was a probationary Lecturer in the College for a year, and who has been a successful journalist since then, bears frank testimony to this in the course of his reminiscences appearing in one of the Centenary Bulletins: "I have to be grateful to St. Aloysius College for much, not in the least for helping me to discover my vocation. After my post graduation, the College was kind enough to offer me a Lectureship. The students were, by and large, tolerant and courteous. So was the Principal. But the interests of the students came first with him. He was firm in telling me at the end of the year that teaching was not my vocation. This from a Principal who bears my own surname and who is the brother of one of my close friends. But he had to weigh the interests of one against those of so many eager students entrusted to his care. This Principal, who has now retired, is one of the people whom I meet faithfully every time I visit Mangalore. The incident reflects the integrity of the Jesuits of St. Aloysius College."
As for the non- Catholic students, their moral development, too, has been taken care of. As early as 1897 - 1898, Fr. Frachetti the fourth Rector, introduced the teaching of what he called General Ethics; it used to be a course in Practical Philosophy conceived for the benefit of the non-Catholic students. The teaching of General Ethics has continued to the present time, though with a change of name; it has latterly been called Moral Science. It has always made the desired dent on the taught. What Dr. Taxeira, the then Bishop of Mylapore, said in 1929 (at the Prize Distribution Ceremony in the College) still holds good : "As to the non-Christian element in the College, I understand that it compares well with the Catholic in the practice of the civic and natural virtues, another index of the efficiency of the educational endeavour here.
How It All Began
Apparently the leaders of the Catholic community in Mangalore were among the first people in the country to feel the need for modern education imparted especially by a body of religious men who could very well be trusted to set about the tasks of education with utter dedication. Being aware of the excellent work done in education by the German Jesuits in Bombay, the Belgain Jesuits in Calcutta and the French Jesuits in Trichy might do likewise by Mangalore.
The 1858 petition was followed by further petitions during the next twenty years. At long last, in 1878, Pope Leo XIII acceded to the request and issued a Brief assigning the Mangalore Mission to the Society of Jesus "mainly with a view to start a College;" and then "Very Rev. Fr. Beckx, the then General of the Jesuits, assigned the Mangalore Mission to the Jesuit Province of Venice.
On November 27, 1978, three Fathers and two Brothers of the Jesuit Province of Venice sailed out from Naples to India. In Bombay, four Fathers of the Bombay Mission (when itself was in the charge of the Jesuit Province of Germany) joined them so that there were now nine Jesuit, in all, proceeding to Mangalore to take charge of the Vicariate of Mangalore in the first instance, and to found a College by and by. Their arrival in Mangalore is described in The History of the Diocese in Mangalore thus : "The steamer S.S. Khandalla dropped anchor in Mangalore on the morning of December 31, 1878, when a gaily - decorated launch came out to take the Fathers ashore. A splendid shamiana had been erected at Bunder, where Fr. Victor, accompanied by a large assemblage of clergy and laity, of Catholics and Hindus, received them when they landed. Mr. Alexander E. C. Vas red an address, which was then presented in handsome sandalwood casket to Fr. Pagani, the Pro-Vicar Apostolic.
The great significance of the event cannot be brought out better than in these words of Dr. A. M. Taxeira, the then Bishop of Mylapore, who spoke them on the occasion of the Annual Prize Distribution Ceremony in 1929: "They came not as conquering heroes with banners unfurled of the proud Caesars of Rome but as ambassadors of the humble martyr of Golgotha, and with His message of Peace and Love. Would that I were able to describe the inestimable blessings rained down from Heaven during their presence here, and drive home the recognition of the un-redeemable debt of gratitude they have placed you under, you students bothe past and present of this great educational institution, St. Aloysius College of Mangalore, your Alma Mater.
The new Fathers set about their task with a will. The holding of various meetings with the local leaders, and the other necessary spade work occupied the best part of a year. On December 19,1879, Fr. Jos. Willy S. J., who had been appointed the First Rector and Principal of the College, issued a Prospectus announcing that the new College would be inaugurated on January 12, 1880, and that the inagural ceremony would be followed straight sway by the teaching programme.
When the College opened on January 12, 1880, Fr. Jos. Willy and Scholastic Postlewhite were the only two teachers available; and owing to the great difference in age between them two, the boys called them Abraham and Isaac. Fr. A. Maffei soon came to their aid; and on January 28, there came Fr. John Sergeant and Fr. Ryan, whereupon it became possible for Fr. Maffei to withdraw, for the time being, from the College and turn to other work at St. Joseph's Seminary in Jeppoo, which too was revived by the pioneering Jesuits in 1879.
But the new College had no habitat of its own. So a private bungalow belonging to Mrs. Mary Magadalene Coelho was rented for the purpose. That there was nothing posh at all about the first habitat of what was to be "the greatest glory of Mangalore" is very evident from one of the letters of Fr. John Sergeant wherein he refers to the day of his arrival (January 28, 1880) and says : "Entering the compound belonging to Mrs. Mary Magdalene Coelho, we saw a huge pandal supported by a dozen poles. This was the principal College hall. Lower down the front varandah were seated the older boys. This was the top class. Round the corner of the bungalow was the second class." In the front verandah was the third class.
"Such were the humble beginings of St. Aloysius College, which began with three comparatively small classes - the Lower Fourth, the Upper Fourth and the Fifth. But it grew steadily under its indefatigable first Rector Fr. Willy and his devoted staff."
