"Mr. Whistler allowed this to continue for some time, but finally, the fatigue of such constant changes caused him to issue an order that the Académie Carmen should be tried but once.
"The students in the men's life-class were constantly changing. On Christmas Day, Mr. Whistler invited them to visit him in his atelier and showed them many of his own canvases in various stages of completeness; explaining how certain results had been obtained, and how certain notes had been blended, and assuring them that he used the science he was teaching them, only that each student would arrange it according to his own needs as time went on, begging them not to hesitate to ask him any question that they wished, or to point out anything they failed to understand. There was an increased enthusiasm for a few weeks, but gradually the old spirit of misunderstanding and mistrust returned, and the men's class again contained but few students.
"Another disappointment to them was that Mr. Whistler explained when they showed him pictures they had painted with a hope to exploit as pupils of the Master in the yearly Salon, that this was impossible, that their complete understanding of the Great Principles and the fitting execution of their application could not be a matter of a few months' study, and he told them he was like a chemist who put drugs into bottles, and he certainly should not send those bottles out in his name unless he was quite satisfied with, and sure of, the contents.
"The last week of the first year arrived, and Mr. Whistler spent the whole of each morning at the Académie. The supervision of one student's work was so satisfactory that he communicated with her, after the closing of the Académie, to announce that he desired to enter into an apprenticeship with her, for a term of five years, as he considered it would take fully that time to teach her the whole of his Science and make of her a finished craftsman; with her artistic development he never for a moment pretended to interfere—'that,' he said, 'is or is not superb—it was determined at birth, but I can teach you how to paint.'
"So, on the 20th of July (1899), the Deed of Apprenticeship [with Mrs. Addams] was signed and legally witnessed, and she 'bound herself to her Master to learn the Art and Craft of a painter, faithfully to serve after the manner of an Apprentice for the full term of five years, his secrets keep and his lawful commands obey, she shall do no damage to his goods nor suffer it to be done by others, nor waste his goods, nor lend them unlawfully, nor do any act whereby he might sustain loss, nor sell to other painters nor exhibit during her apprenticeship nor absent herself from her said Master's service unlawfully, but in all things as a faithful Apprentice shall behave herself towards her said Master and others during the said term.... And the said Master, on his side, undertakes to teach and instruct her, or cause her to be taught and instructed. But if she commit any breach of these covenants he may immediately discharge her.'
"Into the hands of his Apprentice—also now the massière—Mr. Whistler gave the opening of the school the second year, sending all instructions to her from Pourville, where he was staying.
"Each new candidate for admission should submit an example of his or her work to the massière, and so prevent the introduction into the Académie of, first, those who were at present incompetent to place a figure in fair drawing upon the canvas; and secondly, those whose instruction in an adverse manner of painting had gone so far that their work would cause dissension and argument in the Académie. Unfortunately, this order was not well received by some, though the majority were willing to accede to any desire on the part of Mr. Whistler.
"A number absolutely refused to suffer any rule, and preferred to distrust what they could not understand, and the talk among the students of the Quartier was now in disparagement of the Académie.
"Compositions were never done in the school. It was so much more important to learn to paint and draw, for, as Mr. Whistler said, 'if ever you saw anything really perfectly beautiful, suppose you could not draw and paint!'—'The faculty for compositions is part of the artist, he has it, or he has it not—he cannot acquire it by study—he will only learn to adjust the composition of others, and, at the same time, he uses his faculty in every figure he draws, every line he makes, while in the large sense, composition may be dormant from childhood until maturity, and there it will be found in all its fresh vigour, waiting for the craftsman to use the mysterious quality in his adjustment of his perfect drawings to fit their spaces.'
"The third and last year (1900) of the Académie Carmen was marked at its commencement by the failure to open a men's life-class. Mr. Whistler had suffered so greatly during the preceding years from their inability to comprehend his principles and also from the short time the students remained in the school, that at the latter part of the season he often refused to criticise in the men's class at all. He would call sometimes on Sunday mornings and take out and place upon easels the various studies that had been done by the men the previous week, and often he would declare that nothing interested him among them and that he should not criticise that week, that he could not face the fatigue of the 'blankness' of the atelier.