During and immediately after World War I the French Fathers (MEP) found it difficult to staff the school. The devastation of World War I had destroyed nearly a generation of men, some of whom would have become priests and joined the MEP. Bishop Despastures of Mysore, under whose jurisdiction Bangalore came at the time, sought to free up his priests and get religious to teach. He sought unsuccessfully to get the Canons of St Maurice from Switzerland but did get orders of teaching brothers. He had earlier approached the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), founded by St. Ignatius Loyola. He now got the Jesuit Father General in Rome to send a visitor, Fr. Van Kalken, who, in February 1937, wrote to the Superior of the Jesuit Mission in Mangalore that Fr. General had accepted the offer of the Bishop of Mysore.