School Days

School enrollment increased yearly, climbing from 271 in 1907–08 to 373 the following year and 433 for 1909–1910. The school grew in other ways, too, with the birth of new traditions, the most significant of which, for our concerns, is the first known use of the name “St. Ignatius High School” in the 1909–1910Catalogue. Before that time, St. Ignatius College was divided between the college and preparatory (or high school) divisions. (The name “St. Ignatius Grammar School” also appears in the 1910–1911 Catalogue, as the school still taught seventh and eighth graders until 1918.) From this point onward, the high school and college communities began the slow process of separation that continued in 1911 when the college changed its name to the University of St. Ignatius (more on this later). That split widened in 1927 when the college students moved into Campion Hall (on the campus of USF) and when the high school moved, two years later, to Stanyan Street. The high school and university formally split in 1959 into two separate corporations. The final chapter in the separation occurred in 1969 when the high school moved to the Sunset District campus and became known as St. Ignatius College Preparatory. (Even though the name “St. Ignatius High School” did not appear in the official school Catalogue until 1909, Fr. Maraschi did refer to the school as “St. Ignatius Grammar and High School” in an 1855 advertisement for the brand-new academy on Market Street.)