The Sitka Industrial Training School was founded nearly thirty years ago by ex-Governor Brady, who was then a missionary to the Indians of Alaska.
It was first attended by about one hundred natives, ranging from the very young to the very old. This school was continued, with varied success, by different people—including Captain Glass, of the Jamestown—until Dr. Sheldon Jackson became interested, and, with Mr. Brady and Mr. Austin, sought and obtained aid from the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church.
A building was erected for a Boys' Home, and this was followed, a year later, by a Girls' Home.
The girls were taught to speak the English language, cook, wash, iron, sew, mend, and to become cleanly, cheerful, honest, honorable women.
The boys were taught to speak the English language; the trades of shoemaking, coopering, boat-building, carpentry, engineering, rope-making, and all kinds of agricultural work. The rudiments of bricklaying, painting, and paper-hanging are also taught.
During the year 1907 a Bible Training Department was added for those among the older boys and girls who desired to obtain knowledge along such lines, or who aspired to take up missionary work among their people.
Twelve pupils took up the work, and six continued it throughout the year. The work in this department is, of course, voluntary on the part of the student.
The Sitka Training School is not, at present, a government school. During the early nineties it received aid from the government, under the government's method of subsidizing denominational schools, where they were already established, instead of incurring the extra expense of establishing new government schools in the same localities.
When the government ceased granting such subsidies, the Sitka School—as well as many other denominational schools—lost this assistance.
The property of the school has always belonged to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions.