For the Headmaster, for the teacher, for the student, there is a compelling principle - accept responsibility, and then see the job through. If you need advice or help, you'll get it, but you won't get gratuitous interference. One learns to run the job. A pile of papers is not work, but one more miniscule chance to help a young person get where he wants to go. Another half hour at the end of the day is not something one punches into a time clock, but a conversation that may nudge a child in the right direction.
Work becomes vocation.
Any reflections about the Headmaster of Norfolk Academy, 1950-1978, are bound to end where this one began, on the note of unselfishness, of service, of caring for other people. There is always sound counsel for the recurring problem, a boundless compassion in the face of real personal disaster. On a weekday at school there are a thousand people all of whom belong to a kind of extended family, and it is simply a fact to state that Mr. Massey is concerned for each person and for their families out in the community. Somehow, one always feels it natural that an academy family turns to him for help in times of desperate crisis that may well have nothing to do with what is ordinarily thought of as the educational process.