De La Salle Brothers Philippine District

While there was growing pressure for a De La Salle school, Archbishop Harty's request was rejected, because of the Christian Brothers' lack of funds.

Nonetheless, Manila Archbishop Harty continued to appeal to Pope Pius X for the much-needed establishment of additional Catholic schools in the country.

On March 10, 1911, upon instructions from the Vatican to the La Salle Generalate, Brothers Blimond Pierre from France (who would serve as the school's first director), Aloysius Gonzaga, and Augusto Correge, arrived in the Philippines from Europe.

[2] The initial perception of Filipinos about the then newly arrived De La Salle Christian Brothers was that they were no different from the Spanish Friars who were previously the sole handlers of Philippine education for almost three hundred years.

During this time, the Christian Brothers' devotion to education would be recognized by the numerous visits of heads of state to De La Salle and by the proclamation of De La Salle College as the Philippine Islands' Premier School for Boys by Dr. Paul Monroe and a commission of American educators, after an eight-month cross-country inspection of existing Philippine schools in the 1930s.

[2] On February 12, 1945, a Japanese Army officer along with 20 soldiers forcibly made their way into the college, which was then a refuge for 70 people, including 30 women and young girls, 16 European De La Salle Christian Brothers (all the pre-war American De La Salle Christian Brothers had been interned in the Los Baños Concentration Camp) and the college's chaplain-Redemptorist Father Cosgrave CSSR (an Australian), and the adult men of two families.

Two days earlier, De La Salle College Director-Brother Egbert Xavier Kelly FSC (an Irishman) was abducted by another group of Japanese soldiers, and was never seen again.