Summer Recess at the Puyallup Industrial School
The government-run school shifts operations as it manages land sales and student housing expansions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Puyallup Indian Industrial School, Puyallup reservation, will close its doors for the summer vacation next Thursday, June 30. There will be no graduating class this year, but exercises will be given by the scholars on the closing day. They are busy rehearsing a cantata for the occasion. About 260 Indian boys and girls, ranging in age from 6 to 18, have been enrolled this year, while the average attendance has numbered about 170. The buildings have all been undergoing alterations and repairs, and a number of the students had to be dismissed on this account, thus reducing the attendance. When the school reopens next fall, the number of school buildings will be increased so that several hundred children can be accommodated and none will need to be dismissed for lack of room. By September 1, the new girls' hall, with accommodations for 100 students, will be ready for use. A new hospital and barn will also be built. The routine work of the Indian school varies a great deal from the work of the students in the public schools. The Indian children attend school half the time and work the remainder of the day. Sixty-two acres of garden adjoin the school grounds, and here the boys learn to till the soil, while the girls are given a course in the kitchen, laundry and sewing room. The boys can also work in the carpenter or tailor shop. Beginning with July 1, the duties of the superintendent of the school will be increased, and an office with a clerk will then be opened up in this city. The government has decided to dispense with the office of Puyallup Indian commissioner and the unfinished work will be transferred to Superintendent Litton, who will have charge of selling the remainder of the lots in the Indian addition and making the collections on certain lands already sold.
“The Indian children attend school half the time and work the remainder of the day.”
The Puyallup Indian Industrial School was part of the federal government's assimilationist boarding school system, which sought to strip Indigenous children of their culture. Today, the Puyallup Tribe is a major economic and political force in Tacoma, and discussions regarding land ownership and tribal sovereignty continue to be central to the city's civic life.
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