[Sidenote: Hygienic Toilet Rooms]
Enoch Fites found the disgraceful condition of the toilet rooms
belonging to his school to be a source of great temptation and danger to
his pupils. He first solved the general problem of winning his pupils’
confidence. He was a master in quietly introducing improvements in the
school. For example, he secured funds for a splendid clock, which was
connected with the Western Union Telegraph wires and was corrected every
hour. He established a manual training department and set every boy in
high school and in the eighth grade at a bench.
He opened up a domestic science department. He organized tennis teams
and put through a large number of important measures.
When the appropriate time came, he found no difficulty in putting the
toilet rooms for boys in a sanitary condition and keeping them so. He
remarked to a visitor,
“I have not inspected those rooms for two months, but I know just how
they are kept.”
“How in the world do you manage it?”
“I put it up to my boys. I made the toilet rooms entirely adequate for
their needs and then put it up to my boys to keep them clean. They have
never disappointed me.”