692 THK ANNUAL ORATION, 
dertaking of making a horse-shoe, it would at best prove only a 
counterfeit. 
Having in my own person tested the performance, both of 
making a shoe and the nailing on of shoes, I am enabled to offer 
competent testimony to another fact, — that a full development of 
bones and muscles is indispensable, setting aside the tact required 
for either of these masterly undertakings. 
To this extent, Gentlemen, I cordially agree with my friend, 
that every student before he finally quits the College for practice 
should be expert in taking off a shoe, also thoroughly handy in 
searching and paring out a foot, and to be fully master of reaffix- 
ing the shoe to the foot with safety. When possessed of this 
degree of skill, every useful purpose, l conceive, will be obtained, 
and the unwilling artificer, or sulky vulcan, is set at nought 
under any kind of emergency ; but as for the necessity of his 
being able to make a shoe — using Mr. Percivall’s own words — 
a performance which I think I have shewn not usually a first- 
rate one even after a seven years’ apprenticeship, I am exceed- 
ingly unwilling to put this laborious tax upon the individuals, 
most certainly not destined for so intolerable a burden, especially 
if it should fall upon one whose physical powers are not commen- 
surate with his mental ones. 
Gentlemen, I trust it will not be for one moment considered, 
that one tittle less of the manual dexterity than is described by me 
would prove adequate, for I am desirous of impressing on your 
minds a circumstance of the highest importance, mixed up in the 
possession of this branch of knowledge. 
I have long entertained an opinion, that a more difficult duty 
the young practitioner of our art does not engage in at the com- 
mencement of his pursuits in life, and which, more or less, will 
attend him until he becomes grey-headed, and bids the final 
adieu to his practical deeds, than to decide accurately when a 
patient is submitted to his inspection for lameness, whether such 
lameness proceeds from foot or leg. The very fact of our patient 
being; mute demands a degree of intuitive acumen in the ex- 
aminer of no ordinary kind, strengthened by a familiar acquaint- 
ance with the external foot in all its varied forms of health and 
disease. This friendly alliance can be always advantageously 
cultivated in the forge, where the leisure of the student should 
be invariably spent. 
The next subject which I shall venture to touch upon is one 
of peculiar interest to every grade of agriculturist practically 
engaged in working the soil of this great country for a remu- 
nerating profit. I allude to the increased activity of late in pro- 
