Stamering And Cognate Defects Of Speech Vol - Ii

" STAMMERING-SCHOOLS " 299

A guinea a lesson is a very satisfying and rather
popular fee. Most of the fraternity extort from five
to ten guineas a week for tuition and board. How-
ever, there is usually a minimum charge; and the
British stammerer is lucky if the gentleman that
undertakes to relieve him of his impediment relieves
him of no more than forty or fifty guineas at the finish.
The charges are exorbitant; but these frock-coated
frauds operate chiefly among the "superior classes/*
Of recent years a few cheaper schools have come into
existence. They are apparently no worse than the
"superior" institutions.

Among continental stammering-schools, one finds
the extremes of the English and the American type,
and all types intermediate*

When the stammerer pays his tuition-fee, he
usually knows nothing whatever of the method the
** specialist" employs. Not only does the average
"specialist" bind his pupils to secrecy concerning the
details of his method, but he even refuses to disclose
the general nature of his system to bona-fide inquirers.
An English "specialist" is categorical on this point.
He answers a prospective pupil as follows:

" Replying to your letter of the 24th inst. I should not think
of telling you the nature of my system, until you had placed
yourself under my treatment." 1

1 In this, instance, placing oneself under treatment means paying
forty guineas for four weeks' tuition and board.