Editing John Ruskin (section)

===Oxford's first Slade Professor of Fine Art===
[[File:Vanity Fair Caricature of Ruskin.jpg|thumb|Caricature by [[Adriano Cecioni]] published in ''[[Vanity Fair (UK magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' in 1872]]
Ruskin was unanimously appointed the first [[Slade Professor of Fine Art]] at [[Oxford University]] in August 1869, though largely through the offices of his friend, [[Henry Acland]].<ref>Tim Hilton, ''John Ruskin: The Later Years'' (Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 165–68.</ref> He delivered his inaugural lecture on his 51st birthday in 1870, at the [[Sheldonian Theatre]] to a larger-than-expected audience. It was here that he said, "The art of any country is the exponent of its social and political virtues… she [England] must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men;—seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on…"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ruskin |first1=John |title=Lectures on Art |chapter=Lecture I: Inaugural |date=1887 |publisher=National Library Association |location=New York |pages=19, 21 |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19164/19164-h/19164-h.htm#LECTURE_I |access-date=14 June 2022}}</ref> It has been claimed that [[Cecil Rhodes]] cherished a long-hand copy of the lecture, believing that it supported his own view of the British Empire.<ref>{{cite book |last=Symonds | first = Richard |author-link=Richard Symonds (academic)| chapter = Oxford and the Empire |editor1-last=Brock |editor1-first=Michael G. |editor1-link = Michael G. Brock |editor2-last=Curthoys |editor2-first = Mark C. |title=The History of the University of Oxford: Volume VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2 | pages = 689–716, 691|date=2000 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |location=[[Oxford]] |oclc=893971998 |isbn=0191559660}}</ref>

In 1871, John Ruskin founded his own art school at [[Oxford]], [[The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oua.ox.ac.uk/holdings/Ruskin%20School%20of%20Art%20RS.pdf |title=Oxford University Archives &#124; Home |website=Oua.ox.ac.uk |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924062551/http://www.oua.ox.ac.uk/holdings/Ruskin%20School%20of%20Art%20RS.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> It was originally accommodated within the [[Ashmolean Museum]] but now occupies premises on High Street. Ruskin endowed the drawing mastership with £5000 of his own money. He also established a large collection of drawings, watercolours and other materials (over 800 frames) that he used to illustrate his lectures. The School challenged the orthodox, mechanical methodology of the government art schools (the "South Kensington System").<ref name="See Robert Hewison 1996">See Robert Hewison, ''Ruskin and Oxford: The Art of Education'' (Clarendon Press, 1996) {{page needed|date=August 2012}}</ref>

Ruskin's lectures were often so popular that they had to be given twice—once for the students, and again for the public. Most of them were eventually published (see [[#Select_bibliography|Select Bibliography]] below). He lectured on a wide range of subjects at Oxford, his interpretation of "Art" encompassing almost every conceivable area of study, including wood and metal engraving (''Ariadne Florentina''), the relation of science to art (''The Eagle's Nest'') and sculpture (''Aratra Pentelici''). His lectures ranged through myth, ornithology, geology, nature-study and literature. "The teaching of Art…", Ruskin wrote, "is the teaching of all things."{{sfn|Cook and Wedderburn|loc=29.86}} Ruskin was never careful about offending his employer. When he criticised [[Michelangelo]] in a lecture in June 1871 it was seen as an attack on the large collection of that artist's work in the [[Ashmolean Museum]].<ref>Francis O' Gorman,  ''John Ruskin'' (Pocket Biographies) (Sutton Publishing, 1999) p. 78.</ref>

Most controversial, from the point of view of the University authorities, spectators and the national press, was the digging scheme on [[Ferry Hinksey Road]] at [[North Hinksey]], near [[Oxford]], instigated by Ruskin in 1874, and continuing into 1875, which involved undergraduates in a road-mending scheme.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://openplaques.org/plaques/3780 |title=John Ruskin green plaque |publisher=Open Plaques |access-date=18 July 2017 |archive-date=19 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019211657/http://openplaques.org/plaques/3780 |url-status=live }}</ref> The scheme was motivated in part by a desire to teach the virtues of wholesome manual labour. Some of the diggers, who included [[Oscar Wilde]], [[Alfred Milner]] and Ruskin's future secretary and biographer [[W. G. Collingwood]], were profoundly influenced by the experience: notably [[Arnold Toynbee (historian, born 1852)|Arnold Toynbee]], Leonard Montefiore and [[Alexander Robertson MacEwen]]. It helped to foster a public service ethic that was later given expression in the [[settlement movement|university settlements]],<ref>Stuart Eagles, ''After Ruskin: The Social and Political Legacies of a Victorian Prophet, 1870–1920'' (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 103–09.</ref> and was keenly celebrated by the founders of [[Ruskin College|Ruskin Hall, Oxford]].<ref>Stuart Eagles, "Ruskin the Worker: Hinksey and the Origins of Ruskin Hall, Oxford" in ''Ruskin Review and Bulletin'', vol. 4, no. 3 (Autumn 2008), pp. 19–29.</ref>

In 1879, Ruskin resigned from Oxford, but resumed his Professorship in 1883, only to resign again in 1884.<ref>Tim Hilton, ''John Ruskin: The Later Years'' (Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 399–400, 509–10.</ref> He gave his reason as opposition to [[vivisection]],<ref>Jed Mayer, "Ruskin, Vivisection, and Scientific Knowledge" in ''Nineteenth-Century Prose'', vol. 35, no. 1 (Spring 2008) (Guest Editor, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman), pp. 200–22.</ref> but he had increasingly been in conflict with the University authorities, who refused to expand his [[Ruskin School of Drawing|Drawing School]].<ref name="See Robert Hewison 1996"/> He was also suffering from increasingly poor health.