Infirmary at the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1901. An infirmary is a place where sick people stay and are cared for in a school, prison, summer camp, etc. The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, generally known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918. Founded in 1879 by Captain Richard Henry Pratt under authority of the US federal government, Carlisle was the first federally funded off-reservation Indian boarding school. It was founded on the principle that Native Americans were the equals of European-Americans, and that Native American children immersed in mainstream Euro-American culture would learn skills to advance in society.