In 1897, Weber attended Drexel Institute, where illustrator Howard Pyle was an innovative and popular teacher. Pyle, as a result, could be selective about the students that he admitted to his classes. He wrote Edward Penfield, who was his friend and the art director at Harper's Bazaar that he required his students to have strong abilities in color and drawing, artistic ability, and imagination. If they did not excel in each of these areas, he would not accept them as a student.
