He once said to his students, as previously quoted, "See to it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be attached to the partaking of food, etc...." To carry out this idea each table in this great hall has a centrepiece of ferns, mosses, or flowers gathered from the woods by the student selected by his or her companions to decorate the table for that week. Boys and girls sit together at the tables. On Sundays and holidays first and second prizes are given for the tables most artistically decorated. Frequently these prizes take the form of some coveted delicacy in the way of food. Each day when at the Institute Mr. Washington would walk through the dining-hall during the noon meal and criticise these centrepieces, and things generally. He would point out that a certain decoration was too gaudy and profuse and had in it inharmonious colors. He would then remove the unnecessary parts and the discordant colors and point to the improved effect. He would next stop at a table with nothing in the way of decoration except a few scrawny flowers stuck carelessly into a vase. Picking up the meagre display he would say, "The boy or girl who did this is guilty of something far worse than bad taste, and that is laziness!" At the next table he would have a word of praise for the simple and artistic effect which they had produced with a centrepiece of wood mosses and red berries. These comments would be interspersed with an occasional admonition to this boy or that girl for a slovenly manner of eating, or an inquiry of a newcomer as to where he had come from and whether he thought he was going to be happy in his new surroundings. An oft-repeated cause of merriment was his habit of stopping in the middle of the hall, calling for attention, and then asking the students if they were getting enough of various articles which he would name, such as sweet potatoes, corn, and blackberries. Cutting red tape was one of his special delights. Sometimes he would discover, for instance, that certain vegetables were not being served because the steward had objected to the price charged by the Farm Department. He would immediately order these vegetables served and tell the protesting steward that he could fight it out with the Farm Department while the students were enjoying the vegetables. From the dining-room he would finally disappear into the kitchens in his never-ceasing campaign for cleanliness. Over and over again would he repeat to students, teachers, and employees alike that the public would excuse them for what they lacked in the way of buildings, equipment, and even knowledge, but they would never be excused for shiftlessness, filth, litter, or disorder.