Mll. MAYER’S ORATION. 
781 
five little works to the veterinary students, which, if they will 
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, will make them better 
men, both in a moral and professional point of view ; viz., Locke’s 
Conduct of the Understanding, Watts on the Improvement of 
the Mind, Watts’s Logic, Bacon’s Essays, and, though last not 
least, Mason on Self-Knowledge : for you may depend upon it, 
that for a man to know himself intimately is a very difficult as 
well as not a very palatable piece of business ; and until he has 
acquired that knowledge, and formed a proper estimate of his 
own character, he cannot become a great man either in or out of 
his profession. 
In pursuing your medical education, let it be based upon a 
thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology ; for unless this 
foundation is laid deep and solid, depend upon it the superstruc- 
ture will be a very tottering one. You would consider that man a 
great fool who took his watch to be repaired to any one but to a 
watchmaker, a man thoroughly conversant with its structure and 
internal arrangements. Just so is the individual who takes his 
horse to one totally ignorant of its mechanism, for that animal is 
a very complicated piece of machinery, liable to frequent derange- 
ment ; and consequently, if his movements must be properly re- 
gulated, it must be done by the scientific man, who alone is well 
skilled in anatomical and physiological knowledge. In your 
worthy President you have an instructor well skilled in his depart- 
ment ; and if you will only do your duty towards him as well as 
he will towards you, the results will be equally as advantageous 
to yourselves as to the public. In my day we possessed no such 
advantages as you enjoy. We were compelled to fag hard, with 
Blaine for our text-book, in order to obtain even a moderate ac- 
quaintance with these branches of our education : therefore make 
the best use of them, or you may at a future period often sigh for 
the present opportunities of acquiring knowledge, but in vain. I 
would particularly recommend you to cultivate a constant habit 
of registering all important cases. Never omit making post-mor- 
tem examinations ; for by pursuing this plan assiduously, you 
will obtain correct pathological ideas, and possess a standing 
of superiority in your professional character which no other con- 
duct can give. 
Pursue systematically a regular course of reading, so as to 
make yourselves well acquainted with the respective merits of 
every veterinary author, and likewise with every other branch of 
knowledge bearing upon veterinary medicine and surgery. By 
reading well up to the times, you keep yourselves abreast with, if 
not ahead of, the progress of knowledge ; thereby rendering your- 
