Father George A Hess at his Jesuit’s Residence home at XLRI in Jamshedpur

Jamshedpur, July 8: The nonagenarian, a renowned academic, was also a self-confessed shutterbug. And that photographic memory shines through in his memoirs titled Once Upon a Time…that released at the TMDC Auditorium in Jamshedpur today.

Father George A. Hess (92) had been a dashing young American Jesuit who left a PhD in the US to come to India. As principal of Loyola School from 1953 to 1962, he was instrumental in taking the then fledgling cradle, established in 1947 by the Jesuits, to new heights.

The young principal believed in smiling to discipline, not frowns. In consensus, not coercion. And that yielded a rich haul of rewards for the young school, which would soon take giant strides.

For instance, Father Hess said that in the 1950s, when he had to hike the school fees, he asked teachers to find out the economic background of the students.

A meeting was then held with parents and the new fee structure was arrived at with unanimous consensus. “These simple things don’t exist anymore,” said Father Hess.

“Many teachers lack interest in their students. But they are the ones who can make youngsters get interested in studies and groom them into good human beings,” he said.

Such sparkling anecdotes — of his tenure at Loyola School, Dhanbad’s De Nobili School and Jamshedpur’s Loyola College of Education — abound in the 176-page memoirs published by New Delhi-based Jay Cee Publication.

“It’s been a personal pleasure writing my first book at this age. It’s the sum total of my experiences as an educator and administrator in India for five decades,” he said.

On a more modest note, he said: “I wrote the book because I have had nothing important to do.”

But thousands of his students would disagree. Hotelier and philanthropist Ronald D’Costa, who had been a student of Father Hess at Loyola School, said: “ For us, obviously, there’s a huge nostalgia value. The book will touch all readers.”