as a National Historic Landmark. In addition, the government operated a total of more than 300 schools on reservations, many of which accepted boarding students from other tribes. From 1879 until 1918, more than 10,000 Native American children from 140 tribes attended Carlisle. The school's 1911 Annual Report included the results of an employment survey of 532 graduates and 3619 other ex-students. Tribes with the largest number of students included the Lakota, Ojibwe, Cherokee, Apache, Cheyenne, Alaska Native, Iroquois Seneca and Oneida. The Carlisle Indian School exemplified Progressive Era values. Some believed Carlisle provided an excellent education. The policies of the government and practices of Carlisle and similar schools have been controversial since the late 20th century. Some have condemned Pratt's views on assimilation. Founding Richard Henry Pratt At Fort Marion, Florida in the 1870s, Pratt was assigned to supervise former warriors, several dozen Native American prisoners selected from among those who had surrendered in the Indian Territory at the end of the Red River War. He gradually introduced them to classes in the English language, art, guard duty, and craftsmanship. The program became well-known. Distinguished visitors began to visit from all over the country, especially as St. Augustine had become a winter resort for the wealthy. The U.S. Commissioner of Education came to see firsthand what Pratt was doing, as did the president of Amherst College. Pratt's Fort Marion program convinced him that "distant education" was the only way to totally assimilate the Indian. He wrote, the Indian "is born a blank, like all the rest of us. Transfer the savage born infant to the surroundings of a civilization and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit." Witmer writes, Pratt wrote: If all men are created equal, then why were blacks segregated in separate regiments and Indians segregated on separate tribal reservations? Why weren't all men given equal opportunities and allowed to assume their rightful place in society? Race became a meaningless abstraction in his mind. Pratt believed an industrial school model similar to the Hampton Institute would be useful for educating and assimilating Native Americans. Pratt and his supporters successfully lobbied Congress to establish the off-reservation boarding school for Native Americans at the historic Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Pratt founds Carlisle Indian Industrial School By October 1879, Lieutenant Pratt had recruited the first students for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School; eighty-two boys and girls