the need for Native Americans to assimilate. In 1903, Pratt denounced the Indian Bureau and the reservation system as a hindrance to the civilization and assimilation of Native Americans ("American Indians"). "Better, far better for the Indians," he said, "had there never been a Bureau." As a result of the controversy, Pratt was forced to retire as superintendent of Carlisle after 24 years and was placed on the retired list as a brigadier general in the United States Army. In retirement, Pratt and his wife Anna Laura traveled widely, often visiting former students and lecturing and still writing on Indian issues. Pratt continued to advocate for Native American rights until his death at the age of 83 on March 15, 1924, at the old Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco, at San Francisco, California. Pratt's modest granite memorial stone in Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. says "Erected In Loving Memory by his Students and Other Indians." Assimilation efforts at Carlisle Carlisle was created with the explicit goal of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream European-American culture. "The goal of acculturation was to be accomplished by "total immersion" in the white man's world." Pratt founded Carlisle to immerse Native American children in mainstream culture and teach them English, new skills, and customs. Pratt's slogan was "to civilize the Indian, get him into civilization. To keep him civilized, let him stay." Pratt's approach was harsh but an alternative to the commonly-held goal of extermination of Native Americans. A positive outcome of a Carlisle education was the student's increased multilingualism. While assimilation was a crucial part of the Carlisle School's plan, it was also looked at controversially by some Native Americans who felt they were pushed to marry interracially. As Katherine Ellinghaus notes in her book, "There was considerable resistance to the school's unspoken policy regarding interracial marriage." On the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, this also proves evident. Isaiah Wasaquam, a member of the Ottawa Nation, echoes controversy in an application to Carlisle when he answers a question about his marriage proudly, "it has been nearly ten years since I married my Race." Research suggests this was a subtle hint to the school's officials to prove that they have married their own race. Most likely, this backlash by the Natives is due to the fact that the school was trying to, "take the Indian