The Delhi Public School Society (DPS Society) emerged in the late 1940s as a non-profit body to reimagine modern, secular schooling in independent India, formally registering under the Societies Act in 1948 and opening its first school—Delhi Public School, Mathura Road—in 1949; the fledgling campus began humbly (early classes reportedly ran from tents) before its foundation stone was laid by Vice-President Dr. S. Radhakrishnan in 1956. Guided by the motto “Service Before Self,” the Society drew on a circle of eminent educationists and public figures in its formative years and soon expanded beyond its flagship to a network that now spans India and overseas. Over time, DPS schools became known for blending academic rigor with co-curricular breadth, public service, and a cosmopolitan outlook; by the mid-1990s and 2000s the Society’s footprint included a set of “core schools” under direct management (such as Mathura Road and later R.K. Puram) and a wider family of affiliated institutions, with the total count commonly cited as 150+ schools, including international branches. This trajectory—from a single post-Independence experiment to one of India’s most recognizable K–12 networks—owes as much to early vision and governance as to a sustained emphasis on quality, continuity, and nation-building values across generations.