778 
MR. MAYER’S ORATION. 
the infantile state of our profession, must soon yield to other 
arrangements more efficiently adapted to the present demands of 
our art and the times we live in — by these means he was enabled, 
I say, to achieve that advancement of the veterinary science and 
art to its present perfection, which never could have been accom- 
plished in the same space of time without their co-operation. 
Gentlemen, we owe the medical men of our day, and those 
who have gone before them, a debt of gratitude we can never 
repay ; but such high and honourable-minded men will consider 
themselves amply compensated, not only by the consciousness 
of having done their duty in their day and generation, but also 
by the gratification they must experience in beholding the honour- 
able and important station we have been enabled to take in the 
field of science and art by their noble and disinterested conduct 
towards us. 
In this stage of our proceedings, I should be wanting in every 
spark of right feeling if I did not draw your attention to the loss 
which we and the medical world have experienced, since your 
last anniversary, in the death of Sir Astley Cooper — the bosom 
friend of our late Professor, and the warmest, most disinterested, 
and honest friend the veterinary profession ever had, or ever will 
have. In no one was there more a happy combination of the 
suaviter in modo et fortiter in re, either as a private gentleman or 
a professional man. 
Although much has been effected in the advancement of our art 
by these two important characters, and also by our modern authors, 
Blaine, Percivall, Youatt, White, Turner, Bracy Clark, &c. &c., 
and, though last not least, by our worthy secretary, Mr. Morton 
— for unless tools are placed in our hands, and their respective 
uses pointed out to us, we can make but poor progress in the cure 
of disease — yet there is a wide and extensive field, where genius, 
combined with education, industry, and perseverance, may reap 
innumerable honours and fame. We have as yet. Gentlemen, 
only attained a station half way up to our summit level ; nor must 
we rest satisfied until we have arrived abreast with our medical 
and surgical brethren, both in a civil and professional point of 
view. 
I trust, ere long, we shall rejoice to see every branch of science 
that ought to come within the scope of a veterinary surgeon’s 
education forming a distinct chair or lectureship within the walls 
of the Veterinary College. The advantages of such an arrange- 
ment would be untold, both in a moral point of view as well as a 
professional one. The students would then be more immediately 
under the eyes of the principal professor, and their time would be 
fully and usefully occupied by a diligent course of attendance 
