Editing Thomas Eakins (section)

===Teaching and forced resignation===
[[File:Thomas Eakins circa 1882 cropped.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.1|Eakins, {{circa|1882}}]]
[[File:Brooklyn Museum - William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River - Thomas Eakins - overall.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|''William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River'', a 1908 Eakins painting now housed in the [[Brooklyn Museum]]]]
Eakins returned to the Pennsylvania Academy to teach in 1876 as a volunteer after the opening of the school's new [[Frank Furness]] designed building. He became a salaried professor in 1878, and rose to director in 1882. His teaching methods were controversial: there was no drawing from antique casts, and students received only a short study in charcoal, followed quickly by their introduction to painting, in order to grasp subjects in true color as soon as practical. He encouraged students to use photography as an aid to understanding [[anatomy]] and the study of motion, and disallowed prize competitions.<ref>Kathleen A. Foster, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, {{ISBN|0-87633-142-8}}, p. 102</ref> Although there was no specialized vocational instruction, students with aspirations for using their school training for applied arts, such as illustration, lithography, and decoration, were as welcome as students interested in becoming portrait artists.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

Most notable was his interest in the instruction of all aspects of the [[human figure]], including anatomical study of the human and animal body, and surgical [[dissection]]; there were also rigorous courses in the fundamentals of form, and studies in [[perspective (visual)|perspective]] which involved mathematics.<ref>Goodrich, Vol. I, p. 282.</ref> As an aid to the study of anatomy, [[plaster casts]] were made from dissections, duplicates of which were furnished to students. A similar study was made of the anatomy of horses; acknowledging Eakins' expertise, in 1891 his friend, the sculptor [[William Rudolf O'Donovan]], asked him to collaborate on the commission to create bronze equestrian reliefs of [[Abraham Lincoln]] and [[Ulysses S. Grant]], for the [[Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch]] in [[Grand Army Plaza]] in [[Brooklyn]].<ref>Sewell, p. 78.</ref>

Owing to Eakins' devotion to working from life, the academy's course of study was by the early 1880s the most "liberal and advanced in the world".<ref>Weinberg, H. Barbara, ''Thomas Eakins and the Metropolitan Museum of Art'', p. 28. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.</ref> Eakins believed in teaching by example and letting the students find their own way with only terse guidance. His students included painters, cartoonists, and illustrators such as [[Henry Ossawa Tanner]], [[Thomas Pollock Anshutz]], [[Edward Willis Redfield]], [[Colin Campbell Cooper]], [[Alice Barber Stephens]], [[Frederick Judd Waugh]], [[T. S. Sullivant]] and [[A. B. Frost]].{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

He stated his teaching philosophy bluntly, "A teacher can do very little for a pupil & should only be thankful if he don't hinder him ... and the greater the master, mostly the less he can say."<ref>Kathleen A. Foster, p. 102</ref> He believed that women should "assume professional privileges" as would men.<ref>Eakins, letter to [[Edward Hornor Coates]], September 11, 1886, cited in Homer, p. 166.</ref> Life classes and dissection were segregated but women had access to male models (who were nude but wore loincloths).<ref>Sewell et al. 2001, pp. 103–04</ref>

The line between impartiality and questionable behavior was a fine one. When a female student, [[Amelia Van Buren]], asked about the movement of the pelvis, Eakins invited her to his studio, where he undressed and "gave her the explanation as I could not have done by words only".<ref>Eakins, letter to [[Edward Hornor Coates]], September 12, 1886, cited in Homer, p. 166.</ref> Such incidents, coupled with the ambitions of his younger associates to oust him and take over the school themselves,<ref>Homer, p. 173.</ref> created tensions between him and the academy's board of directors. He was ultimately forced to resign in 1886, for removing the loincloth of a male model in a class where female students were present.<ref>Sewell et al. 2001, p. 104</ref>

The forced resignation was a major setback for Eakins. His family was split, with his in-laws siding against him in public dispute. He struggled to protect his name against rumors and false charges, had bouts of ill health, and suffered a humiliation which he felt for the rest of his life.<ref>Kathleen A. Foster, p. 105</ref><ref>"For a similar gesture he lost his position at the Drexel institute in 1895, after a number of female sitters complained of what would now be called sexual harassment." Updike, p. 80.</ref> A drawing manual he had written and prepared illustrations for remained unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime.<ref>Kathleen A. Foster (ed.), ''A Drawing Manual by Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2005 ({{ISBN|0-87633-176-2}})</ref> Eakins' popularity among the students was such that a number of them broke with the academy and formed the [[Art Students' League of Philadelphia]] (1886–1893), where Eakins subsequently instructed. It was there that he met the student [[Samuel Murray (sculptor)|Samuel Murray]], who would become his protege and lifelong friend. He also lectured and taught at a number of other schools, including the [[Art Students League of New York]], the [[National Academy of Design]], [[Cooper Union]], and the Art Students' Guild in Washington DC. Dismissed in March 1895 by the [[Drexel University|Drexel Institute]] in Philadelphia for again using a fully nude male model, he gradually withdrew from teaching by 1898.<ref>Sewell et al. 2001, p. 257</ref>