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Cornell University
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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003495516

STAMMERING

ITS CAUSE AND CURE

BY

Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

A Chronic Stammerer for Almost Twenty
Years; Originator of the Bogue Unit Method
of Restoring Perfect Speech; Founder of the
Bogue Institute for Stammerers and Editor of
the "Emancipator," a magazine devoted to the
Interests of Perfect Speech

INDIANAPOLIS

BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE

1926

Printed in the United States of America

(^ ^I'^l^

Copyright 1919 by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
Copyright 1920 by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
Copyright 1922 by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

J First Printing 1919
Second Printing 1920
Third Printing 1922
Fourth Printing 1924
Fifth Printing 1926

HAMMOND PtIESS

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY

OHICAOO

TO MY MOTHER

That toonderful woman whose unflag-
ging courage held me to a task that I
never could have completed alone and
who when all others failed, stood by me,
encouraged me and pointed out the
heights where lay success — this volume
is dedicated

CONTENTS

Preface 11

PABT I— MY LIFE AS A STAMMEEEE

I Starting Life Under a Handicap 15

n My First Attempt to Be Cured 19

III My Seareli Continues 27

IV A Stammerer Hunts a Job 36

V Further Futile Attempts to Be Cured 40

VI I Befuae to Be Discouraged 48

Vn The Benefit of Many Failures 51

Vm Beginning "Where Others Had Left Off .... 57

PAET n— STAMMERING AND STUTTEEING

The Causes, Peculiarities, Tendencies
and Effects

/^ I Speech Disorders Defined 62

II The Causes of Stuttering and Stammering ... 72
in The Peculiarities of Stuttering and Stammering . 90

IV The Intermittent Tendency 97

V T^e Progressive Tendency 102

VI Can Stammering and Stuttering Be Outgrown? . . 108

vn The Effect on the Mind 113

Vin The Effect on the Body 117

IX Defective Speech in Children

(1) The Pre-Speaking Period 120

X Defective Speech in Children

(2) The Formative Period 128

10 STAMMERING

XI Defective Speech in Children

(3) The Speech-Setting Period 136

XII The Speech Disorders of Youth 144

XIII Where Does Stammering Lead? 151

PAET III— THE CUBE OF STAMMEEING
AND STUTTEEING

I Can Stammering Eeally Be Cured! 160

11 Cases That "Cure Themselves" 164

III Cases That Cannot Be Cured 167

IV Can Stammering Be Cured by Mail? 177

V The Importance of Expert Diagnosis 181

VI The Secret of Curing Stuttering and Stammering . 186

VII The Bogue Unit Method Described 196

VIII Some Cases I Have Met 208

PAET IV— SETTING THE TONGUE FEEE '

I The Joy of Perfect Speech 230

II How to Determine Whether Tou Can Be Cured . . 233

III The Bogue Guarantee and What It Means .... 236
rv The Cure Is Permanent 239

V A Priceless Gift — ^An Everlasting Investment . . . 243

VI The Home of Perfect Speech 246

Vn My Mother and The Home Life at the Institute . . 255

VIII A Heart-to-Heart Talk with Parents 264

IX The Dangers of Delay 269

PREFACE

CONSIDERABLY more than a third of
a century has elapsed since I purchased my
first book on stammering. I still have that quaint
little book made up in its typically English style
with small pages, small type and yellow paper
back — the work of an English author whose ob-
tuse and half-baked theories certainly lent no
clarity to the stammerer's understanding of his
trouble. Since that first purchase my library of
books on stammering has grown until it is per-
haps the largest individual collection in the
world. I have read these books — ^many of them
several times, pondered over the obscurities in
some, smiled at the absurdities in others and
benefited by the truths in a few. Yet, with all
their profound explanations of theories and their
verbose defense of hopelessly unscientific meth-
ods, the stammerer would be disappointed in-
deed, should he attempt to find in the entire
collection a practical and understandable discus-
sion of his trouble.

This insufficiency of existing books on stam-

12 STAMMERING

mering has encouraged me to bring out the pres-
ent volume. It is needed. I know this — because
I spent ahnost twenty years of my life in a well-
nigh futile search for the very knowledge herein
revealed. I haunted the libraries, was a famihar
figure in book stores and a frequent visitor to the
second-hand dealer. Yet these efforts brought
me comparatively little — ^not one-tenth the infor-
mation that this book contains.

Perhaps it is but a colossal conceit that
prompts me to offer this volume to those who
stutter and stammer as I did. Yet, I cannot but
believe that almost twenty years' personal expe-
rience as a stammerer plus more than twenty-
five years' experience in curing speech disorders
has supplied me with an intensely practical, val-
uable and worth-while knowledge on which to
base this book.

After having stammered for twenty years you
have pretty well run the whole gamut of mockery,
humiliation and failure. You understand the
stammerer's feelings, his mental processes and
his pecTiliarities.

And when you add to this more than a quarter

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 13

of a century, every waking hour of which has
been spent in alleviating the stammerer's diffi-
culty — and successfully, too — you have a ground-
work of first-hand information that tends toward
facts instead of fiction and toward practice
instead of theory.

These are my qualifications.

I have spent a life-time in studying stammer-
ing, stuttering and kindred speech defects. I
have written this book out of the fullness of that
experience — I might almost say out of my daily
work. I have made no attempt at hterary style
or rhetorical excellence and while the work may
be homely in expression the information it con-
tains is definite and positive — and what is more
important — it is authoritative.

I hope the reader will find the book useful —
yes, and helpful. I hope he will find in it the
way to Freedom of Speech — ^his birthright and
the birthright of every man.

Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

Indianapolis
March, 1926

STAMMERING

Its Cause and Cure

PART I

MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER

CHAPTER I

STARTING LIFE UNDER A HANDICAP

I WAS laughed at for nearly twenty years
because I stammered. I found school a bur-
den, college a practical impossibility and life a
misery because of my aflfliction.

I was bom in Wabash county, Indiana, and as
far back as I can remember, there was never a
time when I did not stammer or stutter. So far
as I know, the halting utterance came with the
first word I spoke and for almost twenty years
this difficulty continued to dog me relentlessly.

When six years of age, I went to the little
school house down the road, little realizing what
I was to go through with there before I left.

16 STAMMERING

Previous to the time I entered school, those
around me were my family, my relatives and my
friends — people who were very kind and con-
siderate, who never spoke of my difficulty in my
presence, and certainly never laughed at me.

At school, it was quite another matter. It was
fun for the other boys to hear me speak and it
was common pastune with them to get me to talk
whenever possible. They would jibe and jeer —
and then ask, "What did you say? Why don't
you learn to talk English?" Their best enter-
tainment was to tease and mock me imtil I be-
came angry, taunt me when I did, and ridicule
me at every turn.

It was not only in the school yard and going
to and from school that I suffered — but also in
class. When I got up to recite, what a spectacle
I made, hesitating over every other word, stum-
bling along, gasping for breath, waiting while
speech returned to me. And how they laughed
at me — for then I was helpless to defend my-
self. True, my teachers tried to be kind to me,
but that did not make me talk normally like other
children, nor did it always prevent the others
from laughing at me.

The reader can imagine my state of mind dur-

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 17

ing these school days. I fairly hated even to
start to school in the'morning — ^not because I dis-
liked to go to school, but because I was sure to
meet some of my taunting comrades, sure to be
humihated and laughed at because I stammered.
And having reached the school room I had to face
the prospect of failing every time I stood up on
my feet and tried to recite.

There were four things I looked forward to
with positive dread — the trip to school, the recita-
tions in class, recess in the school yard and the
trip home again. It makes me shudder even now
to think of those days — the dread with which I
left that home of mine every school day morn-
ing, the nervous strain, the torment and torture,
and the constant fear of failure which never left
me. Imagine my thoughts as I left parents and
friends to face the ribald laughter of those who
did not imderstand. I asked myself: "Well,
what new disgrace today? Whom will I meet
this morning? What will the teacher say when
I stumble? How shall I get through recess?
What is the easiest way home?

These and a hundred other questions, born of
nervousness and fear, I asked myself morning
after morning. And day after day, as the hours

STAMMERING

dragged by, I would wonder, "Will this day
never end? Will I never get out of this?"

Such was my hfe in school. And such is the
daily life of thousands of boys and hundreds of
^rls — a life of dread, of constant fear, of endless
worry and unceasing nervousness.

But, as I look back at the boys and girls who
helped to make life miserable for me in school,
I feel for them only kindness. I bear no malice.
They did no more than their fathers and mothers,
many of them, would have done. They little
realized what they were doing. They had no
intention to do me personal injury, though there
is no question in my mind but that they made my
trouble worse. They did not know how terribly
they were punishing me. They saw in my afflic-
tion only fun, while I saw in it — only misery.

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST ATTEMPT TO BE CUBED

I CAN remember very clearly the positive fear
which always accompanied a visit to our
friends or neighbors, or the advent of visitors at
my home. Many a time I did not have what I
desired to eat because I was afraid to ask for it.
When I did ask, every eye was turned on me,
and the looks of the strangers, with now and
then a half -suppressed smile, worked me up to a
nervous state that was almost hysterical, causing
me to stutter worse than at any other time.

At one time — I do not remember what the
occasion was — a number of people had come to
visit us. A large table had been set and loaded
with good things. We sat down, the many dishes
were passed aroimd the table, as was the custom
at our home, and I said not a word. But before
long the first helping was gone — a hungry boy
soon cleans his plate — and I was about to ask for
more when I bethought myself. "Please pass — "
I could never do it — "p" was one of the hard
sounds for me. "Please pass — " No, I couldn't

20 STAMMERING

do it. So busying myself with the things that
were near at hand and helping myself to those
things which came my way, I made out the meal
— ^but I got up from the table hungry and with
a deeper consciousness of the awfulness of my
affliction. Slowly it began to dawn on me that
as long as I stammered I was doomed to do with-
out much of the world's goods. I began to see
that although I might for a time sit at the
World's Table of Good Things in Life I could
hope to have little save that which someone
passed on to me gratuitously.

As long as I was at home with my parents,
life went along fairly well. They understood my
difficulty, they sympathized with me, and they
looked at my trouble in the same light as myself
— as an affliction much to be regretted. At home
I was not required to do anything which would
embarrass me or cause me to become highly
excited because of my straining to talk, but on
the other hand I was permitted to do things
which I could do well, without talking to any
one.

The time was coming, however, when it would
be "Sink or Swim" for me, since it would not be

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 21

many years until a sense of duty, if nothing else,
would send me out to make my own way. This
time comes to all boys. It was soon to be my
task to face the world — to make a living for
myself. And this was a thing which, strangely
enough for a boy of my age, I began to think
about. I had some experience in meeting people
and in trying to transact some of the minor busi-
ness connected with our farm and I found out
that I had no chance along that line as long as
I stammered.

And yet it seemed as if I was to be compelled
to continue to stammer the rest of my life, for
my condition was getting worse every day. This
was very clear to me — and very plain to my
parents. They were anxious to do something for
me and do it quickly, so they called in a skilled
physician. They told him about my trouble. He
gave me a cursory examination and decided that
my stuttering was caused by nervousness, and
gave me some very distasteful medicine, which I
was compelled to take three times a day. This
medicine did me no good. I took it for five years,
but there was no progress made toward curing
my stuttering. The reason was simple. Stutter-

y22 STAMMERING

[ ing cannot be cured by bitter medicine. The

\ physician was using the wrong method. He was

\ treating the effect and not the cause. He was

\of the opinion that it was the nervousness that

caused my stuttering, whereas the fact of the

niatter was, it was my stuttering that caused the

nervousness.

I do not blame this physician in the least be-
cause of his failure, for he was not an expert on
the subject of speech defects. While he was a
medical man of known ability, he had not made
a study of speech disorders and knew practically
nothing about either the cause or cure of stam-
mering or stuttering. Even today, prominent
medical men will tell you that their profession has
given little or no a,ttention to defects of speech
and take httle interest in such cases.

Some time later, after the physician had failed
to benefit me, a traveling medicine man came to
our community, set up his tent, and stayed for
a week. Of course, like all traveling medicine
men, his remedies were cure-alls. One night in
making his talk before the crowd, he mentioned
the fact that his wonderful concoction, taken
with the pamphlet that he would furnish, both

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 23

for the sum of one dollar, would cure stammer-
ing. I didn't have the dollar, so I did not buy.
But the next day I went back, and I took the dol-
lar along. He got my dollar, and I still have the
book. Of course, I received no benefit what-
ever. I later came to the conclusion that the
medicine man had been in the neighborhood long
enough to have pointed out to him "Ben Bogue's
Boy Who Stutters" (as I was known) and
had decided that when I was in his audience a
hint or two on the virtues of his wonderful remedy
in cases of stammering, would be sufficient to
extract a dollar from me for a tryout.

These experiences, however, were valuable to
me, even though they were costly, for they taught
me a badly-needed lesson, to wit: That drugs
and medicines are not a cure for stammering.

Many of the people who came in contact with
me, and those who talked the matter over with
my parents, said that I would outgrow the
trouble. "All that is necessary," remarked one
man, "is for him to forget that he stammers, and
the trouble will be gone."

This was a rather foohsh suggestion and sim-
ply proved how little the man knew about the

24 STAMMERING

subject. In the first place, a stammerer cannot
forget his difficulty — who can say that he would
be cured if he did? You might as well say to a
man holding a hot poker, "If you will only forget
that the poker is hot, it will be cool." It takes
something more than forgetfulness to cure
stammering.

The belief held by both my parents and myself
that I would outgrow my difficulty was one of
the gravest mistakes we ever made. Had I fol-
lowed the advice of others who believed in the
outgrowing theory it eventually would have
caused me to become a confirmed stammerer,
entirely beyond hope of cure.

Today, as a result of twenty-five years' daily
contact with stammerers, I know that stammering
cannot be outgrown. The man who suggests that
it is possible to cure stammering by outgrowing
it is doing a great injustice to the stammerer,
because he is giving him a false hope — in fact the
most futile hope that any stammerer ever had. I
wish I could paint in the sky, in letters of fire, the
truth that "Stammering cannot be outgrown,"
because this, of all things, is the most frequent
pitfall of the stammerer, his greatest delusion and
one of the most prolific causes of continued suffer-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 25

ing. I know whereof I speak, because I tried it
myself. I know how many different people held
up to me the hope that I would outgrow it.

My father offered me a valuable shotgun if I
would stop stammering. My mother offered me
money, a watch and a horse and buggy. These
inducements made me strain every nerve to stop
my imperfect utterance, but all to no avail. At
this time I knew nothing of the underlying prin-
ciples of speech and any effort which I made to
stop my stammering was merely a crude, misdi-
rected attempt which naturally had no chances
for success.

I learned that prizes will never cure stammer-
ing. I found out too, something I have never
since forgotten: that the man, woman or child
who stammers needs no inducement to cause him
to desire to be cured, because the change from
his condition as a stammerer to that of a non-
stammerer is of more inducement to the sufferer
than all the money you could offer him. I have
never yet seen a man, woman or child who wanted
to stammer or stutter.

The offer of prizes doing no good, I took long
trips to get my mind off the affliction. I did

26 ST^MMEBINO

everything in my power, worked almost day and
night, exerted every effort I could command — ^it
was all in vain.

The idea that I would finally outgrow my
difficulty was strengthened in the minds of my
parents and friends by the fact that there were
times when my impediment seemed almost to dis-
appear, but to our surprise and disappointment,
it always came back again, each time in a more
aggravated form ; each time with a stronger hold
upon me than ever before.

I found out, then, one of the fundamental
characteristics of stammering — its intermittent
tendency. In other words, I discovered that a
partial relief from the difficulty was one of the
true symptoms of the malady. And I learned
further that this relief is only temporary and not
whit we first thought it to be, viz: a sign that the
disorder was leaving.

CHAPTER III

MY SEARCH CONTINUES

MY parents' efforts to have me cured, how-
ever, did not cease with my visit to the
medicine man. We were still looking for some-
thing that would bring relief. My teacher. Miss
Cora Critchlow, handed me an advertisement one
day, telling me of a man who claimed to be able
to cure stammering by mail. In the hope that I
would get some good from the treatment, my
parents sent this mail order man a large sum of
money. In return for this I was furnished with
instructions to do a number of useless things, such
as holding toothpicks between my teeth, talking
through my nose, whistling before I spoke a
word, and many other foolish things. It was at
this time that I learned once and for all, the
imprudence of throwing money away on these
mail order "cures," so-called, and I made up my
mind to bother no more with this man and his
kind.

So far as the mail order instructions were con-
cerned, they were crude and unscientific — ^merely

28 STAMMERING

a hodge-podge of pseudo-technical phraseology
and crass ignorance — a, meaningless jargon
scarcely intelligible to the most highly educated,
and practically impossible of interpretation by
the average stammerer who was supposed to fol-
low the course. Even after I had, by persistent
effort, interpreted the instructions and followed
them closely for many months, there was not a
sign of the slightest relief from my trouble. It
was evident to me even then that I could never
cure myself by following a mail cure.

Today, after twenty-five years of experience
in the cure of stammering, I can say with full
authority, that stammering cannot be successfully
treated by mail. The very nature of the diffi-
culty, as well as the method of treatment, make
it impossible to put the instructions into print or
to have the stammerer follow out the method
from a printed sheet.

As I approached manhood, my impediment
began to get worse. My stuttering changed to
stammering. Instead of rapidly repeating syl-
lables or words, I was unable to begin a word.
I stood transfixed, my limbs drawing themselves
into all kinds of imnatural positions. There were
violent spasmodic movements of the head, and

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 29

contractions of my whole body. The muscles of
my throat would swell, affecting the respiratory
organs, and causing a curious barking sound.
When I finally got started, I would utter the first
part of the sentence slowly, gradually increase
the speed, and make a rush toward the end.

At other times, when attempting to speak, my
lips would pucker up, firmly set together, and
I would be unable to separate them, imtil my
breath was exhausted. Then I would gasp for
more breath, struggling with the words I desired
to speak, until the veins of my forehead would
swell, my face would become red, and I would
sink back, wholly unable to express myself, and
usually being obliged to resort to writing.

These paroxysms left me extremely nervous
and in a seriously weakened condition. After
one of these attacks, the cold perspiration would
break out on my forehead in great beads and I
would sink into the nearest chair, where I would
be compelled to remain until I had regained my
strength.

My affliction was taking all my energy, sap-
ping my strength, deadening my mental facul-
ties, and placing me at a hopeless disadvantage
in every way. I could do nothing that other

30 STAMMEEING

people did. I appeared unnatural. I was ner-
vous, irritable, despondent. This despondency
now brought about a peculiar condition. I began
to beheve that everyone was more or less an
enemy of mine. And still worse, I came to be-
lieve that I was an enemy of myself, which f eel-
mg threw me into despair, the depths of which
I do not wish to recall, even now.

I was not only miserably unhappy myself,
I made everyone else around me unhappy,
although I did it, not intentionally, but because
my afl3iction had caused me to lose control of
myself.

In this condition, my nerves were strained to
the breaking point all day long, and many a night
I can remember crying myself to sleep — crying
purely to relieve that stored-up nervous tension,
and falling off to sleep as a result of exhaustion.

As I said before, there were periods of grace
when the trouble seemed almost to vanish and I
would be delighted to believe that perhaps it was
gone forever — Chappy hope! But it was but a
delusion, a mirage in the distance, a new road to
lead me astray. The aflBiction always returned,
as every stammerer knows — returned worse than

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 31

before. All the hopes that I would outgrow my
trouble, were found to be false hopes. For me,
there was no such thing as outgrowing it and I
have since discovered that after the age of six
only one-fifth of one per cent, ever outgrow the
trouble.

Another thing which I always thought peculiar
when I was a stammerer was the fact that I had
practically no difficulty in talking to animals
when I was alone with them. I remember very
well that we had a large bulldog called Jim,
which I was very fond of. I used to believe that
Jim understood my troubles better than any
friend I had, imless it was Old Sol, our family
driving horse.

Jim used to go with me on all my jaunts — I
could talk to him by the hour and never stammer
a word. And Old Sol — well, when everything
seemed to be going against me, I used to go out
and talk things over with Old Sol. Somehow
he seemed to understand — he used to whinney
softly and rub his nose against my shoulder as
if to say, "I understand, Bennie, I understand!"

Somehow my father had discovered this pe-
culiarity of my affliction — that is, my ability to
talk to animals or when alone. Something sug-

32 STAMMEKING

gested to him that my stammering could be
cured, if I could be kept by myself for several
weeks. With this thought in mind, he suggested
that I go on a hunting and fishing trip in the
wilds of the northwest, taking no guide, no com-
panion of any sort, so that there would be no
necessity of my speaking to any human being
while I was gone.

My father's idea was that if my vocal organs
had a complete rest, I would be restored to per-
fect speech. As I afterwards proved to my own
satisfaction by actual trial, this idea- was entirely
wrong. You can not hope to restore the proper
action of your vocal organs by ceasing to use
them. The proper functioning of any bodily
organ is the result, not of ceasing to use it at all,
but rather of using it correctly.

This can be very easily proved to the satisfac-
tion of any one. Take the case of the small boy
who boasts of his muscle. He is conscious of an
increasing strength in the muscles of his arm not
because he has failed to use these muscles but
because he has used them continually, causing a
faster-than-ordinary development.

You can readily imagine that I looked forward
to my "vacation" with keen anticipation, for I

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 33

had never been up in the northwest and I was
full of stories I had read and ideas I had formed
of its wonders.

The trip, lasting two weeks, did me scarcely
any good at aU. The most I can say for it is
that it quieted my nerves and put me in some-
what better physical condition, which a couple of
weeks in the outdoor country woiild do for any
growing boy.

But this trip did not cure my stammering, nor
did it tend to alleviate the intensity of the trouble
in the least, save through a lessened nervous state
for a few days. Today, after twenty-five years'
experience, I know that it would be just as
sensible to say that a wagon stuck in the soft mud
would get out by "resting" there as it is to say
that stammering can be eradicated by allowing
the vocal organs to rest through disuse.

Shortly after my return from the trip to the
northwest, my father died, with the result that
our household was, for a time, very much broken
up. For a while, at least, mj' stammering, though
not forgotten, did not receive a great deal of
attention, for there were many other things to
think about.

The summer following my father's death, how-

34 STAMMESINO

ever, I began again my so-far fruitless search for
a ,eure for my stammering, this time placing
myself imder the care and instruction of a man
claiming to be "The World's Greatest Specialist
in the Cure of Stammering." He may have been
the world's greatest specialist, but not in the cure
of stammering. He did succeed, however, by the
use of his absurd methods, in putting me through
a course that resulted in the membrane and lining
of my throat and vocal organs becoming irritated
and inflamed to such an extent that I was com-
pelled to undergo treatment for a throat affec-
tion that threatened to be as serious as the stam-
mering itself.

I triied everything that came to my attention —
first one thing and then another — but without
results. Still I refused to be discouraged. I kept
on and on, my mother constantly encouraging
and reassuring me. And you will later see that
I found a method that cured me.

There are always those who stand idly about
and say, "It can't be done!" Such people as
these laughed at Fulton with his steamboat, they
laughed at Stephenson and his steam locomotive,
they laughed at Wright and the airplane.

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 36

They say, "It can't be done" — but it is done,
nevertheless.

I turned a deaf ear to the people who tried to
convince me that it couldn't be done. I had a
firm belief in that old adage, "Where there is a
will there is a way," and I made another of my
own, which said, "I will f,nd a way or make one T'

And I did!

CHAPTER IV

A STAMMEBER HUNTS A JOB

AFTER recovering from my sad experiment
with the "Wonderful Speciahst," I did not
want to go home and listen to the Anvil Chorus
of "It Can't Be Done!" and "I Told You So!"
I had no desire to be the object of laughter as
well as pity. So I tried to get a job in that same
city. I went from office to office — ^but nobody
had a job for a man who stammered.

Finally I did land a job, however, such as it
was. My duties were to operate the elevator in
a hotel. How I managed to get that job, I often
wonder now, for nobody on whom I called had
any place for a boy or man who stammered. I
thought it would be easy to find a job where I
wouldn't need to talk, but when I started out to
look for this job, I found it wasn't so easy after
all. Almost any job requires a man who can
talk. This I had learned in my own search for a
place. But somehow or other, I managed to get
that job as elevator boy in a hotel.

For the work as elevator boy I was paid three

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 37

dollars a week. Wasn't that great pay for a man
grown? But that's what I got.

That is, I got it for a little while, until I lost
my job. For lose it I did before very long. I
found out tha,t I couldn't do much with even an
elevator boy's job at three dollars a week unless
I could talk. My employer found it out, too, and
then he f oxmd somebody who could take my place
— a boy who could answer when spoken to.

Well, here I was out of a job again. I am
afraid I came pretty near being discouraged
about tha,t time. Things looked pretty hopeless
for me — ^it was mighty hard work to get a job
and the place didn't last long after I had gotten
it.

But, nevertheless, the only thing to do was to
try again. I started the search all over again.
I tried first one place and then another. One
man wanted me to start out as a salesman. He
showed me how I could make more money than
I had ever made in my life — convinced me that I
could make it. Then I started to teU my part of
the story — ^but I didn't get very far before he
discovered that I was a stammerer. That was
enough for him — with a gesture of hopelessness,
he turned to his desk. "You'll never do, young

38 STAMMERING

man, you'll never do. You can't even talkl"
And the worst of it was that he was right.

I once thought I had landed a job as stock
chaser in a factory, but here, too, stammering
barred the way, for they told me that even the
stock chaser had to be able to deliver verbal mes-
sages from one foreman to another. I didn't
dare to try that.

Eventually, I drifted around to the Union
News Company. They wanted a boy to sell
newspapers on trains nmning out over the Grand
Trunk Railway. I took the job — the last job in
the world I should have expected to hold, because
of aU the places a newsboy's job is one where you
need to have a voice and the ability to talk.

I hope no stammerer ever has a position that
causes him as much humiliation and suifering as
that job caused me. You can imagine what it
meant to me to go up and down the aisles of the
train, calling papers and every few moments
finding out that I couldn't say what I started out
to say and then go gasping and grunting down
the aisle making aU sorts of facial grimaces.

How the passengers laughed at me ! And how
they made fun of me and asked me all sorts of
questions just to hear me try to talk. It almost

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 39

made me wish I could never see a human being
again, so keen was the suffering and so tense were
my nerves as a result of this work.

I don't believe I ever did anything that kept
me in a more frenzied mental state than this
work of trying to sell newspapers — and it wasn't
very long (as I had expected) until the manager
found out my situation and gently let me out.

Then I gave up, aU at once. Was I discour-
aged? Well, perhaps. But not exactly discour-
aged. Rather I saw the plain hopelessness of
trying to get or hold a job in my condition. So
I prepared to go home. I didn't want to do it,
because I knew the neighbors and friends round
about would be ready for me with, "I told you
so" and "I knew it couldn't be done" and a lot
of gratuitous information like that.

But I gave up, nevertheless, deeply disap-
pointed to think that once again I had failed to
be cured of starmnering, yet all the while resolv-
ing just as firmly as ever that I would try again
and that I would never give up hope as long as
there remained anything for me to do.

And this rule I followed out, month after
month and year after year, tmtil in the end I was
richly rewarded for my patience and persistence.

CHAPTER V

FUETHEE FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO BE CURED

THE next summer I decided to visit eastern
institutions for the cure of stammering and
determine if these could do any more for me than
had abeady been done — which as the reader has
seen, was practically nothing. I bought a ticket
for Philadelphia, where I remained for some
time, and where I gained more information of
value than in all of my previous efforts combined.

I found in the Quaker City an old man who
had made speech defects almost a life study. He
knew more about the true principles of speech
and the underlying fundamentals in the produc-
tion of voice than all of the rest put together.
He taught me these things, and gave me a solid
foundation on which to build. True, he did not
cure my stammering. But that was not because
he failed to understand its cause, but merely be-
cause he had not worked out the correct method
of removing the cause.

It was this man who first brought home to me
tibe fact that principles of speech are constant.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 41

that they never change and that every person
who talks normally follows out the same princi-
ples of speech, while every person who stutters
or stammers violates these principles of speech.
That is the basis of sound procedure for the cure
of stammering and I must acknowledge my in-
debtedness to this sincere old gentleman who did
so much for me in the way of knowledge, even
though he did but little for me in the way of
results.

After leaving Philadelphia, I visited Pitts-
burgh, Baltimore, Washington, New York, Bos-
ton and other eastern cities, searching for a cure,
but did not find it. I was benefitted very little.
These experiences, however, all possessed a cer-
tain value, although I did not know it at the time.
They taught me the things which would not work
and by a simple process of elimination I later
found the things which would.

Finally, however, having become disgusted
with my eastern trip, I bought a ticket for home
and boarded the train more nearly convinced
than ever that I had an incurable case of stam-
mering.

Some time after trying my experiment with
the eastern schools, I saw the advertisement of

42 STAMMERING

a professor from Chicago saying that he would
be at Fort Wayne, Indiana, (which was 40 miles
from my home) , for a week.

He was there. So was I. But to my sorrow.
I paid him twenty dollars for which he taught me
a few simple breathing and vocal exercises, most
of which I already knew by heart, having been
drilled in them time and again. This fellow was
like so many others who claimed to cure stam-
mering — he was in the business just because
there were stammerers to cure, and not because
he knew anything about it. He treated the ef-
fects of the trouble and did not attempt to re-
move the cause. The fact of the matter is, I
doubt whether he knew anything about the cause.

Then one Sunday while reading a Cincinnati
Sunday newspaper, I ran across an advertise-
ment of a School of Elocution, in which was the
statement, "Stammering Positively Cured!"
Whenever I saw a sign "Vocal Culture" I be-
came interested, so I clipped the advertisement,
corresponded with the school and not many Sun-
days later, being able to secvu-e excursion rates to
Cincinnati, I made the trip and prepared to begin
my work.

The cost of the course was only fifty dollars

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 48

and I thought I would be getting cured mighty
cheap if I succeeded. So I gave this school a
"whirl" with the idea of going back home in a
short time cured — to the surprise of my family
and friends. But I was doomed to disappoint-
ment. I took the twenty lessons, but went home
stammering as badly as ever. You can imagine
how I felt as the Big Four train whistled at
the Wabash river just before pulling into the
Wabash station, where I was to get off.

Here was another failure that could be checked
up against the instructor who knew nothing
whatever about the cause of stammering. The
whole idea of the course was to cultivate voice
and make me an orator. That was very fine and
would, no doubt, have done me a great deal of
good, but it was of no use to try to cultivate a
fine voice until I could use that voice in the
normal way. The finest voice in the world is of
no use if you stammer, and cannot use it. The
school of elocution went the same way as all the
rest — it was a total failure so far as curing my
stammering was concerned.

By this time, my effort to be cured of stam-
mering had become a habit, just as eating and
sleeping are habits. I was determined to be

44 STAMMERING

cured. I made up my mind I would never give
up. True, I often said to myself, "I may never
be cured," but in the same breath I resolved that
if I was not, it could never be said that it was
because I was a "quitter."

My next experiment was with a man who
claimed he could cure my stammering in one hour.
Think of it. Here I had been, spending weeks
and months trying out just one way of cure
and here was a man who could do the whole job
in one hour. Wonderful power he must possess,
I thought. Of course, I did not believe he could
do it. I could not beUeve it. It was not believ-
able. But nevertheless, in my effort to be cured,
I had resolved to leave no stone unturned. I
made up my mind that the only way to be sure
that I was not missing the successful method was
to try them all.

So I put myself under this man's hand. He
was a hypnotist. He felt able to restore speech
with a hypnotic sleep and the proper hypnotic
suggestion while I was in the trance. But like
aU the fake fol-de-rol with which I had come in
contact, he did not even make an impression.

I will say in behalf of this hypnotic stammer
doctor, however, that he was following distin-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 45

guished precedent in attempting to cure stam-
mering by hypnotism. German professors in
particular have been especially zealous in follow-
ing out this line of endeavor and many of them
have written volumes on the subject only to end
up with the conclusion (in their own minds, at
least) that it is a failure. Hypnotism may be
said to be a condition where the will of the sub-
ject is entirely dormant and his every act and
thought controlled by the mind of the hypnotist.
I do not know, not having been conscious at the
time, but it is not improbable that while in the
hypnotic state, I was able to talk without stam-
mering, since my words were directed by the
mind of the professor, and not my own mind.
But inasmuch as I couldn't have the professor
carried around with me through the rest of my
lifetime in order to use his mind, the treatment
could not benefit me.

I next got in touch with an honest-looking old
man with a beard like one of the prophets, who
assured me with a great deal of professional dig-
nity, that stammering was a, mere trifle for a
magnetic healer like himself and that he could
cxu*e it entirely in ten treatments. So I planked
down the specified amount for ten treatments,

46 STAMMERING

and went to him regularly three times a week for
almost a month, when he explained to me, again
with a plenitude of professionalism, that my case
was a very peculiar one and that it would require
ten more treatments. But I could not figure out
how, if ten treatments had done me no good, ten
more would do any better. So I declined to try
his methods any further. Once again I said to
myself, "Well, this has failed, too — I wonder
what next?"

The next happened to be electrical treatments.
When I visited the electrical treatment specialist,
he explained to me in a very eflFective manner
just how (according to his views) stammering
was caused by certain contractions of the muscles
of the vocal organs, etc., and told me that his
treatment surely was the thing to eliminate this
contraction and leave my speech entirely free
from stammering. I knew something about my
stammering then, but not a great deal — conse-
quently his explanation sounded plausible to me
and appealed to me as being very sensible and
so I decided to give it a trial. I was glad after
it was over that I had received no bad effects —
that was all the cause I had to be glad, for he
had not changed my stammering one iota, nor

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 47

had he changed my speech in any way to make it
easier for me to talk. Thus, had I foimd another
one of the things that will not work and chalked
up another failure against my attempts to be
cured of stammering.

By this time, the reader may well wonder why
I was not discouraged in my efforts to be cured.
Well, who will say that I was not? I believe I
was — ^as far as it was possible for nie to be dis-
couraged at that time. But despite all my fail-
ures, I had made up my mind never to give up
until I was cured of stammering. I set myself
doggedly to the task of ridding myself of an
impediment that I knew would always hold me
down and prevent any measure of success. I
stayed with this task. I never gave up. I kept
this one thing always in mind. It was a life job
with me if necessary — ^and I was not a "quitter."
So failures and discouragements simply steeled
me to more intense endeavors to be cured. And
while these endeavors cost my parents many hun-
dreds of dollars and cost me many years of time,
still, I feel today that they were worth while — ^not
worth while enough to go through again, or worth
while enough to recommend to any one else — but
at least not a total loss to me.

CHAPTER VI

I REFUSE TO BE DISCOUKAGED

AFTER I had tried the electric treatment and
found it wanting, I heard of a clairvoyant
who could, by looking at a person, tell his name,
age, occupation, place of residence, etc., and
could cure all diseases and aflflictions including
stammering. So I thought I would give him a
trial. He claimed to work through a "greater
power" — ^whatever that was — and so I paid him
his fee to see the "greater power" work — and to
be cured of stammering, as per promise. But
there was nothing doing in the line of a cure —
all I got in trying to be cured, was another chap-
ter added to my book of experience.

Following this experience, I tried an osteo-
path, whose methods, however good they might
have been, affected merely the physical organs
and could not hope to reach the real cause of my
trouble. I do not doubt that this man was en-
tirely sincere in explaining his own science to me
in a way that led me to build up hopes of relief

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 49

from that method. He simply did not imder-
stand stammering and its causes and was there-
fore not prepared to treat it.

I was told of another doctor who claimed to
be able to cure stammering. When I called to
see him, he had me wait in his reception room for
nearly two hours, for the purpose, I presume, of
giving me the impression that he was a very busy
man. Then he called me into his private consul-
tation room, where he apparently had aU of the
modem and up-to-date surgical instruments. He
put me through a thorough examination, after
which he said that the only thing to cure me was
a surgical operation to have my tonsils removed.
I was not willing to consent to the use of the
knife, so therefore the operation was never per-
formed.

Since that time, however, the practice of oper-
ating on children especially for the removal of
adenoids and tonsils has become very popular and
quite frequently this is the remedy prescribed for
various and sundry ailments of childhood. In no
case must a parent expect to eradicate stuttering
or stammering by the removal of the tonsils. The
operation, beneficial as it may be in other ways.

50 STAMMERING

does not prevent the child from stammering — for
the operation does not remove the cause of the
stammering — that cause is mental, not physical.

CHAPTER VII

THE BENEFIT OF MANY FAILURES

I HAD now tried upwards of fifteen different
methods for the cure of my stammering. I
had tried the physician; the surgeon; the elocu-
tion teacher; the hypnotic specialist; the osteo-
path; a clairvoyant; a mail-order scheme; the
world's greatest speech specialist — so-called, and
several other things. My parents had spent hun-
dreds of dollars of money trying to have me
cured. They had spared no effort, stopped at no
cost. And yet I now stammered worse than I
had ever stammered before. Everything I had
tried had been a worthless failure. Nothing had
been of the least permanent good to me. My
money was gone, months of time had been wasted
and I now began to wonder if I had not been
very foolish indeed, in going to first one man and
then another, trying to be cured. "Wouldn't it
have been better," I asked, "if I had resigned
myself to a hf e as a stammerer and let it go at
that?"

My father before me stammered. So did my
grandfather and no less than fourteen of my

52 STAMMERING

blood relations. My aflSiction Avas inherited and
therefore supposedly incurable. At least so I
was told by honest physicians and other scientific
observers who beheved what they said and who
had no desire to make any personal gain by
trafficking in my infirmity. These men told me
frankly that their skill and knowledge held out
no hope for me and advised me from the very
beguining to save my money and avoid the pit-
falls of the many who would profess to be able to
cure me.

But I had disregarded this honest advice, sin-
cerely given, had spent my money and my time —
and what had I gotten? Would I not have been
better off if I had listened to the advice and
stayed at home? Everything seemed to answer
"Yes," but down in my heart I felt that things
were better as they were. Certainly some good
must come of all this effort — surely it could not
aU be wasted.

"But yet," I argued with myself, "what good
can come of it?" Stammering was fast ruining
my life. It had already taken the joy out of my
childhood and had made school a task almost too
heavy to be undertaken. It had marked my youth
with a somber melancholy, and now that youth

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 53

was slipping away from me with no hope that the
future held anything better for me than the past.
Something had to be done. I was overpowered
by that thought — something had to be done. It
had to be done at once. I had come to the turn-
ing point in my life. Like Hamlet, I found my-
self repeating over and over again,

"To he or not to he.
That is the question."

Was I discouraged? No, I will not admit that
I was discouraged, but I was pretty nearly re-
signed to a life without fluent speech, nearly con-
vinced that future efforts to find a cure for stam-
mering would be fruitless and bring no better
results.

It was about this time that I stepped into the
office of my cousin, then a successful lawyer and
district attorney of his city, later the first vice-
president of one of the great American railroads
with headquarters in New York, and now retired.
He was one of those men in whose vocabulary
there is no such word as "fail." After I had
talked with him for quite a while, he looked at me,
and with his kindly, almost fatherly smile asked,
"Why don't you cure yourself?"

54 STAMMERING

"Cure myself?" I queried. "How do you ex-
pect me, a young man with no scientific training,
to cure myself, when the learned doctors, sur-
geons and scientists of the country have given me
up as incurable?"

"That doesn't make any difference," he re-
plied, " 'while there is life, there is hope' and it's
a sure thing that nobody ever accomplished any-
thing worth while by accepting the failures of
others as proof that the thing couldn't be done.
Whitney would never have invented the cotton
gin if he had accepted the failures of others as
final. Columbus picked out a road to America
and assured the skeptics that there was no danger
of his sailing 'over the edge.' Of course, it had
never been done before, but then Colimibus went
ahead and did it himself. He didn't take some-
body else's failure as an indication of what he
could do. If he had, a couple of hundred years
later, somebody else would have discovered it and
put Columbus in the class with the rest of the
weak-kneed who said it couldn't be done, just
because it never had been done.

"The progress of this country, Ben," continued
my cousin, "is founded on the determination of
men who refuse to accept the failures of others

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 55

as proof that things can't be done at all. Now
you've got a mighty good start. You've found
out all about these other methods — you know that
they have failed — and in a lot of cases, you know
WHY they have failed. Now, why don' t you
begin where they have left off and find out how to
succeed?"

The thought struck me hke a bolt from a clear
sky : "begin where the others leave off and
FIND OUT HOW TO SUCCEED!" I kept Saying it
over and over to myself, "Begin where the others
leave off — begin where the others leave off!"

This thought put high hope in my heart. It
seemed to ring like a call from afar. "Begin
where the others leave off and find out how to
succeed." I kept thinking about that aU the way
home. I thought of it at the table that evening.
I said nothing. I went to bed — but I didn't go
to sleep, for singing through my brain was that
sentence, "Begin where the others leave off and
find out how to succeed!"

Right then and there I made the resolve that
resulted in my curing myself. "I will do it," I
said, "I will begin where the others leave off —
and I WILL SUCCEED ! !" Then and there I deter-
mined to master the principles of speech, to chart

56 STAMMERING

the methods that had been used by others, to find
their defects, to locate the cause of stammering,
to find out how to remove that cause and remove
it from myself, so that I, like the others whom I
so envied, could talk freely and fluently.

That resolution — that determination which
first fired me that evening never left me. It
marked the turning point in my whole life. I
was no longer dependent upon others, no longer
looking to physicians or elocution teachers or
hypnotists to cure me of starmnering. I was
looking to myself. If I was to be cured, then I
must be the one to do it. This responsibility
sobered me. It intensified my determination. It
emphasized in my own mind the need for per-
sistent effort, for a constant striving toward this
one thing. And absorbed with this idea, living
and working toward this one end, I began my
work.

CHAPTER VIII

BEGINNING WHEKE OTHERS HAD LEFT OFF

FROM the moment that my resolution took
shape, my plans were all laid with one thing
in mind — to cure myself of stammering. I de-
termined, first of all, to master the principles
of speech. I remembered very well, indeed, the
admonition of Prof. J. J. Mills, President of
Earlham College, on the day I left the institu-
tion. "You have been a hard-working student,"
he said, "but your success will never be complete
until you learn to talk as others talk. Cure your
stammering at any cost." That was the thing I
had determined to do. And having determined
upon that course, I resolved to let nothing swerve
me from it.

I began the study of anatomy. I studied the
lungs, the throat, the brain — ^nothing escaped me.
I pursued my studies with the avidity of the
medical student wrapped up in his work. I read
all the books that had been published on the sub-
ject of stammering. I sought eagerly for trans-
lations of foreign books on the subject. I lived

58 STAMMERING

in the libraries. I studied late at night and arose
early in the morning, that I might be at my
work again. It absorbed me. I thought of the
subject by day and dreamed of it by night. It
was never out of my mind. I was living it,
breathing it, eating it. I had not thought myself
capable of such concentration as I was putting in
on the pursuit of the truth as regards stammering
and its cure.

With the knowledge that I had gained from
celebrated physicians, specialists and institutions
throughout this country and Europe, I extended
my experiments and investigation. I had an ex-
cellent subject on which to experiment — ^myself.
Progress was slow at first — so slow, in fact, that
I did not realize until later that it was progress at
aU. Nothing but my past misery, backed up
by my present determination to be free from the
impediment that hampered me at every turn,
could have kept me from giving up. But at last,
after years of effort, after long nights of study
and days of research, I was rewarded by success
— I found and perfected a method of control of
the articulatory organs as well as of the brain
centers controlling the organs of speech. I had
learned the cause of stammering and stuttering.

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 59

All of the mystery with which the subject had
been surrounded by so-called specialists, fell
away. In all its clearness, I saw the truth. I
saw how the others, who had failed in my case,
had failed because of ignorance. I saw that they
had been treating effects, not causes. I saw
exactly why their methods had not succeeded and
could never succeed.

In truth I had begtm where the others left off
and won success. The reader can imagine what
this meant to me. It meant that at last I could
speak — clearly, distinctly, freely, and fluently,
without those facial contortions that had made
me an object of ridicule wherever I went. It
meant that I could take my place in life, a man
among men; that I could look the whole world
in the face; that I could live and enjoy life as
other normal persons lived and enjoyed it.

At first my friends could not believe that my
cure was permanent. Even my mother doubted
the evidence of her own ears. But I knew the
trouble would not come back, for the old fear was
gone, the nervousness soon passed away, and a
new feeling of confidence and self-reliance took
hold of me, with the result that in a few weeks I
was a changed man. People who had formerly

60 STAMMERING

avoided me because of my infirmity began to
greet me with new interest. Gradually the old
afiliction was forgotten by those with whom I
came into daily contact and by many I was
thought of as a man who had never stammered.
Even today, those who knew me when I stam-
mered so badly I could hardly talk, are hardly
able to believe that I am the same person who
used to be known as "Ben Bogue's Boy Who
Stitttees."

For today I can talk as freely and fluently as
anybody. I do not hesitate in the least. For
years, I have not even known what it is to grope
mentally for a word. I speak in public as well
as in private conversation. I have no difficulty
in talking over the telephone and in fact do not
know the difference. In my work, I lecture to
students and am invited to address scientific
bodies, societies and educational gatherings, all
of which I can accomplish without the slightest
difficulty.

Today, I can say with Terence, "I am a man
and nothing that is human is alien to me." And
I can go a step further and say to those who are
afflicted as I was afflicted: "I have been a stam-
merer. I know your troubles, your sorrows, your

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 61

discouragements. I understand with an under-
standing born of a costly experience."

Man or woman, boy or girl, wherever you are,
my heart goes out to you. Whatever your sta-
tion in life, rich or poor, educated or unlettered,
discouraged and hopeless, or determined and res-
olute, I send you a message of hope, a message
which, in the words of Dr. Russell R. ConweU,
"has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the thou-
sands of lives I have been privileged to watch.
And the message is this: Neither heredity nor
environment nor any obstacles superimposed by
man can keep you from marching straight
through to a cure, provided you are guided by a
firm driving determination and have normal
health and intelligence." To that end I commend
to you the succeeding pages of this volume, where
you will find in plain and simple language the
things which I have spent more than thirty years
in learning. May these pages open for you the
door to freedom of speech — ^as they have opened
it for hundreds before you.

PART II

STAMMERING AND STUTTERING

The Causes, Peculiarities, Ten-
dencies and Effects

CHAPTER I

SPEECH DISORDERS DEFINED

IN the diagnosis of speech disorders, there are
ahnost as many different forms of defective
utterance as there are cases, all of which forms,
however, divide themselves into a few basic types.
These various disorders might be broadly classi-
fied into three classes :

(1) — Those resulting from carelessness in
learning to speak;

(2) — Those which are of distinct mental
form ; and

(3) — Those caused by a physical deformity
in the organs of speech themselves.

Regardless of xmder which of these three heads a

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 63

speech disorder may come, it is commonly spoken
of by the laymen as a "speech impediment" or
"a stoppage in speech" notwithstanding the fact
that the characteristics of the various disorders
are quite dissimilar. In certain of the disorders,

(a) — There is an inability to release a word;
in others,

(b) — A tendency to repeat a syllable sev-
eral times before the following
syllable can be uttered ; in others,

(c) — The tendency to substitute an incor-
rect sound for the correct one; while
in others,

(d) — The utterance is defective merely in
the imperfect enunciation of sounds
and syllables due to some organic
defect, or to carelessness in learning
to speak.

While this volume has but little to do with speech
disorders other than stammering and stuttering,
the characteristics of the more common forms of
speech impediment — lisping, cluttering and hesi-
tation, as well as stuttering and stammering —
will be discussed in this first chapter, in order

64 STAMMERING

that the reader may be able, in a general way at
least, to differentiate between the various dis-
orders.

LISPING

This is a very common form of speech disorder
and one which manifests itself early in the life of
the child. Lisping may be divided into three
forms :

( 1 ) — Negligent Lisping
(2) — Neurotic Lisping
(3) — Organic Lisping

Negligent Lisping: This is a form of defective
enunciation caused in most cases by parental
neglect or the carelessness of the child himself in
the pronunciation of words during the first few
months of talking. This defective pronunciation
in Negligent Lisping is caused either by a failv/re
or an inability to observe others who speak cor-
rectly. We learn to speak by imitation, and fail-
ing to observe the correct method of speaking in
others, we naturally fail to speak correctly our-
selves. In Negligent Lisping, this inability prop-
erly to imitate correct speech processes, results

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 65

in the substitution of an incorrect sound for the
correct one with consequent faulty formation of
words.

Organic lAsping: This results from an or-
ganic or physical defect in the vocal organs, such
as hare-lip, feeble lip, malformation of the
tongue, defective teeth, overshot or imdershot
jaw, high palatal arch, cleft palate, defective
palate, relaxed palate following ah operation for
adenoids, obstructed nasal passages or defective
hearing.

Neurotic Lisping: This is a form of speech
marked by short, rapid muscular contractions in-
stead of the smooth and easy action used in pro-
ducing normal sounds. Neurotic Lisping is often
found to be combined with stammering or stut-
tering, which is quite logical, since it is similar,
both as to cause and as to the presence of a men-
tal disturbance. In Neurotic Lisping, the mus-
cular movements are less spasmodic than in cases
of stuttering, partaking more of the cramped
sticking movement, common in stammering.

stuItering
Stuttering may be generally defined as the
repetition — ^rapid in some cases, slow in others —

66 STAMMEEING

of a word or a syllable, before the following word
or syllable can be uttered. Stuttering may take
several forms, any one of which will fall into one
of four phases :

( 1 ) — Simple Phase
(2) — Advanced Phase
(3)— Mental Phase
(4) — Compound Phase

Simple stuttering can be said to be a purely
physical form of the difficulty. The Advanced
Phase marks the stage of further progress where
the trouble passes from the purely physical state
into a condition that may be known as Mental-
Physical. The distinctly Mental Phase is marked
by symptoms indicating a mental cause for the
trouble, the disorder usually having passed into
this form from the simple or advanced stages of
the malady. Stuttering may be combined with
stammering in which case the condition repre-
sents the Compound Phase of the trouble.

Choreatic Stuttering: This originates in an at-
tack of Acute Chorea or St. Vitus Dance, which
leaves the sufferer in a condition where involun-
tary and spasmodic muscular contractions, espe-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 67

cially of the face, have become an established
habit. This breaks up the speech in a manner
somewhat similar to ordinary stuttering. Also
known as "Tic Speech."

Spastic Speech: This is often the result of in-
fantile cerebral palsy, the characteristic sjTnptom
of the trouble being intense over-exertion, con-
tinued throughout a sentence, the syllables being
equal in length and very laboriously enunciated.
In spastic speech, there is present a noticeable
hyper-tonicity of the nerve fibers actuating the
muscles used in speaking as well as marked con-
tractions of the facial muscles.

Unconscious Stuttering: This is a misnomer
because there can be no such thing as unconscious
stuttering. It appears that the person afflicted
is not conscious of his difficulty for he insists that
he does not s-s-s-s-tut-tut-tut-ter. Unconscious
Stuttering is but a name for the disorder of a
stutterer who is too stubborn to admit his own
difficulty.

Thought Stuttering: This is an advanced form
of stuttering which is also known as Aphasia and

68 STAMMERING

which is caused by the inability of the sufferer to
recall the mental images necessary to the forma-
tion of a word. Stuttering in its simpler forms
is usually connected with the period of childhood,
while aphasia is often connected with old age or
injury. The aphasic person is excessively nerv-
ous as is the stutterer; he undergoes the same
anxiety to get his words out and the same fear of
being ridiculous. In aphasia there is, however,
no excessive muscular tension or cramp of the
speech muscles. In these cases, the stutterer will
sometimes repeat the first syllable ten or fifteen
times with pauses between, being for a time un-
able to recall what the second syllable is. It is,
in other words, a habitual, but nevertheless tem-
porary, inabiUty to recall to mind the mental
images necessary to produce the word or syllable
desired to be spoken. This condition is more
commonly known as Thought Lapse or the in-
ability to think of what you desire to say.

One investigator shows that the diagnosis of
"insanity" with later commitment to an asylum
occurred in the case of a bad stutterer. When
excited he would go through the most extreme
contortions and the wildest gesticulations in a
vain attempt to finally get all of the word out,

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 69

finally pacing up and down the room like one
truly insane. This tendency to believe that the
stutterer is insane because of the convulsive or
spasmodic effort accompanying his efforts to
speak, is a mistaken one, although there can be
little doubt of the tendency of this condition
finally to lead to insanity if not checked.

HESITATION

Hesitation is marked by a silent, choking
effort, often accompanied by a fruitless opening
and closing of the mouth. Hesitation is a stage
through which the sufferer usually passes before
he reaches the condition known as Elementary
Stammering,

STAMMERING

Stammering is a condition in which the person
afilicted is unable to begin a word or a sentence
no matter how much effort may be directed
toward the attempt to speak, or how well they
may know what they wish to say. In stammer-
ing, there is the "sticking" as the stammerer terms
it, or the inability to express a sound. The dif-
ference between stammering and stuttering lies
in the fact that in stuttering, the disorder mani-
fests itself in loose and hurried (or in some cases,

70 STAMMERING

slow) repetitions of sounds, syllables or words,
while in the case of stammering, the manifesta-
tion takes the form of an inability to express a
somid, or to begin a word or a sentence.

Elementary Stammering : This is the simplest
form of this disorder. Here, the convulsive effort
is not especially noticeable and the marked results
of long-continued stammering are not apparent.
Most cases pass quickly from the elementary
stage imless checked in their incipiency.

Spasmodic Stammering : This marks the stage
of the disorder where the effort to speak brings
about marked muscular contractions and pro-
nounced spasmodic efforts, resulting in all sorts
of facial contortions, grimaces and uncontrolled
jerkings of the head, body and limbs.

Thought Stammering: This, like Thought-
Stuttering, is a form of Aphasia and manifests
itself in the inability of the stammerer to think
of what he wishes to say. In other words, the
thought-stammerer, like the thought-stutterer, is
unable to recall the mental images necessary to
the production of a certain word or sound — and
is, therefore, unable to produce sounds correctly.

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 71

The manifestations described under Thought
Stuttering are present in Thought Stammering
also.

Combined Stammering and Stuttering: This
is a compound form of diiBculty in which the suf-
ferer finds himself at times not only imable to
utter a sound or begin a word or a sentence but
also is found to repeat a sound or syllable several
times before the following syllable can be uttered.
Any case of stuttering or stammering in the Sim-
ple or Elementary Stages may pass into Com-
bined Stammering and Stuttering without warn-
ing or without the laiowledge, even, of the stam-
merer or stutterer.

CHAPTER II

THE CAUSES OF STUTTERING AND
STAMMERING

ONE of the first questions asked by the stut-
terer or stammerer is, "What is the cause
of my trouble?" In asking this question, the
stammerer is getting at the very essence of the
successful method of treatment of his malady, for
there is no method of curing stuttering, stammer-
ing and kindred defects of speech that can bring
real and permanent relief from the affliction
unless it attacks the cause of the trouble and
removes that cause.

Inasmuch as this book has to do almost entirely
with the two defective forms of utterance known
as stuttering and stammering, we will at this time
drop all reference to the other forms of speech
impediments and from this time forth refer only
to stuttering and stammering.

These forms of defective speech are manifested
by the inability to express words in the normal,
natural manner — freely and fluently. In other
words, there is a marked departure from the

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 73

normal in the methods used by the stammerer in
the production of speech. It is necessary, there-
fore, before taldng up the discussion of the causes
of stuttering and stammering, to determine the
method by which voice is produced in the normal
individual, so that we can compare this normal
production of speech with the faulty method
adopted by the stutterer or stammerer and learn
where the fault is and what is the cause of it.

Let us now proceed to do this : In other words,
let us ask the question: "How is speech produced
in the normal person not afflicted with defective
utterance?"

Voice is produced by the vocal organs much in
the same manner as sounds are produced on a
saxophone or clarinet, by forcing a current of air
through an aperture over which is a reed which
vibrates with the sounds. The low tones pro-
duced by the saxophone or clarinet result from
the enlargement of the aperture, while the higher
tones are produced by contracting the opening.
Variations of pitch in the human voice are also
effected by elongation and contraction of the
vocal cords with comparative slackness or tension,
as in the viohn.

It would be of no value, and, in fact, would

74 STAMMERING

only serve to confuse the layman, to know the
duties or functions of the various organs or parts
entering into the production of speech. Suffice
it to say that in the "manufacture" of words,
there are concerned the glottis, the larynx, tho-
rax, diaphragm, lungs, soft palate, tongue, teeth
and lips. In the production of the soimds and
the combination of sounds that we call words,
each of these organs of speech has its own par-
ticular duty to perform and the failure of any one
of these organs properly to perform that duty
may result in defective utterance of some form.

Brain Control: It must be borne in mind that
for any one or all of the organs of speech to
become operative or to manifest any action, they
must be innervated or activated by impulses orig-
inating in the brain.

For instance, if it is necessary that the glottis
be contracted to a point which we will call "half-
open" for the production of a certain sound, the
brain must first send a message to that organ
before the necessary movement can take place.
In saying the word "you," for instance, it would
be necessary for the tongue to press tip against
the base of the lower row of front teeth. But

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 75

before the tongue can assume that position, it is
necessary that the brain send to the tongue a
message directing what is to be done.

When the number of different organs involved
in the production of the simplest word of one
syllable is considered (such as the word "you"
just mentioned), and when it is further consid-
ered that separate brain messages must be sent
to each of the organs, muscles or parts concerned
in the production of that word, then it will be
understood that the process of speaking is a
most complicated one, involving not only numer-
ous physical organs but also intricate mental
processes.

When all of the organs concerned in the pro-
duction of speech are working properly and when
the brain sends prompt and correct brain im-
pulses to them, the result is perfect speech, the
free, fluent and easy conversation of the good
talker. But when any or all of these organs fail
to function properly, due to inco-ordination, the
result is discord — and defective utterance.

Cause of Defective Utterance: Now, let us
consider the cause of defective utterance. What
is it that causes the organ, muscle or parts to fail

76 STAMMERING

properly to function? The first and most obvi-
oiis conclusion would be that there was some
inherent defect in the organ, muscle or part which
failed to function. But experience has proved
that this is usually not the case. An examination
of two thousand cases of defective utterance,
including many others besides stuttering and
stammering, revealed three-tenths of one per
cent, with an organic defect — that is, a defect in
the organs themselves. In other words, only
three persons out of every thousand afflicted with
defective utterance were found to have any phys-
ical shortcoming that was responsible for the
affliction.

Take any of these two thousand cases — say
those that stammered, for instance. What was
the cause of their difficulty, if it did not lie in the
organs used in the production of speech? This
is the question that long puzzled investigators in
the field of speech defects. Like Darwin, they
said: "It must be this, for if it is not this, then
what is it?" If stuttering and stammering are not
caused by actual physical defects in the organs
themselves, what then can be the cause?

Due to a Lack of Co-ordination: Cases of
stammering and stuttering where no organic

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 77

defect is present are due to a lack of co-ordination
between the brain and the muscles of speech. In
other words, the harmony between the brain and
the speech organs which normally result in
smooth working and perfect speech has been
interrupted. The brain impulses are no longer
properly transmitted to and executed by the
muscles of speech.

This failure to transmit properly brain mes-
sages or this lack of co-ordination may take one
of two forms : it may result in an imder-mnerva-
tion of the organs of speech, which results in
loose, uncontrolled repetitions of a word, sound
or syllable, or it may take the form of an over-
innervation of the vocal organ with the result
that it is so intensely contracted as to be entirely
closed, causing the "sticking" or inability to pro-
nounce even a sound, so common to the stam-
merer.

Suppose that you try to say the word "tray."
Do not articulate the sounds. Merely make the
initial effort to say it. What happens? Simply
this : The tip of the tongue comes in contact with
the upper front teeth at their base and as you
progress in your attempt to say "t," the tongue
flattens itself against the roof of the mouth, mov-

78 STAMMEEING

ing from the tip of the tongue toward its base.
If you are a stammerer, you will probably find in
endeavoring to say this word, that your vocal
organs fail to respond quickly and correctly to
the set of brain messages which should result in
the proper enunciation of the word "tray." Your
tongue clings to the roof of your mouth, your
mouth remains open, you suffer a rush of blood
to the face, due to your powerful and unsuccess-
ful effort to articulate, and the word refuses to be
spoken.

Now, in order to dissociate "lack of co-ordi-
nation," from stammering and to get an idea of
its real nature, let us imagine an experiment
which can be conducted by any one, whether they
stammer or not.

You see on the table before you a pencil. You
want to write and consequently you want to pick
up the pencil. Therefore, your brain sends a
message to your thumb and forefinger, saying,
"Pick up the pencil." Your brain does not, of
course, express that command in words, but sends
a brain impulse based upon the kinaesthetic or
motor image of the muscular action necessary to
accomplish that act. But for our purpose in this

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 79

experiment, we can assume that the brain sends
the message in terms which, if interpreted in
words, would be "pick up the pencil." Suppose
that when that brain message reaches your thumb
and forefinger, instead of reaching for the pen-
cil, they immediately close and clap or stick,
refusing to act. Your hand is imable to pick up
the pencil. That, then, is similar to stammering.
The hand is doing practically what the vocal
organs do when the stammerer attempts to speak
and fails. But, on the other hand, if, when the
message was received by your thumb and finger,
it made short, successive attempts to pick up the
pencil, but failed to accomphsh it, then you could
compare that failure to the uncontrolled repeti-
tions of stuttering. This inability to control the
action of the thumb and forefinger would be the
result of a lack of co-ordination between the
brain and the muscles of the hand, while stutter-
ing or stammering is the result of a lack of
co-ordination between the brain and the muscles
of speech.

What Causes Lack of Co-ordination: But
even after it is knovm that stuttering and stam-
mering are caused by a lack of co-ordination

80 STAMMERING

between the brain and the organs of speech, still,
the mind of scientific and inquiring trend must
ask, "What causes the lack of co-ordination?"
And that question is quite in order. It is plain
that the lack of co-ordination does not exist with-
out a cause. What, then, is this cause?

An inquiry into the cause of the inco-ordina-
tion between brain and speech-organs leads us to
an examination of the original or basic causes of
stammering. These original or basic causes in
their various ramifications are almost as numer-
ous as the cases of speech disorders themselves,
but they fall into a comparatively few well-
defined classes.

These original causes in many cases do not
appear to have been the direct and immediate
cause of the trouble, but rather a predisposing
cause or a cause which brought about a condition
that later developed into stuttering or stam-
mering.

Let us set down a list of the more common of
these causes, not with the expectation of having
the list complete but rather of giving facts about
the representative or more common Basic Predis-
posing Causes of Stuttering and Stammering.

A little more than 96 per cent, of the causes of

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 81

stammering which the author has examined can
be traced back to one of the five causes shown
below :

1 — Mimicry or Imitation
2 — Fright or severe nerve shock
3 — Fall or injury of some sort
4 — Heredity
5 — ^Disease

Let us take up these familiar causes of stutter-
ing or stammering in the order in which we have
set them down and learn something more of them.

The first and one of the most common causes is
Mimicry, or, as it is probably more often called.
Imitation. Mimicry or Imitation is almost wholly
confined to children. After reaching the age of
discretion, the adult is usually of sufficient intel-
ligence to refrain from mimicking or imitating a
person who stutters or stammers.

The average small boy, however, (or girl, for
that matter) seems to find delight in mocking and
imitating a playmate who stutters or stammers,
and so keen is this delight that he persists in this
practice day after day until (as its own punish-

82 STAMMERING

merit) the practice of mockery or mimicry brings
upon the boy himself the affliction in which he
found his fun.

It may be noted, however, that Imitation is not
always conscious, but often unconscious. The
small child begins to imitate the stuttering com-
panion without Icnowing that he engages in imita-
tion. This practice, notwithstanding the fact that
it is unconscious, soon develops into stuttering,
without any cause being assignable by the parent
until investigation develops that unconscious and
even unnoticed imitation is the basic cause of the
defective utterance.

It has been definitely determined that stutter-
ing may be communicable through contagious
impressions, especially among children of tender
age whose minds are subject to the slightest im-
pressions.

For this reason, it is not advisable for parents
to allow children to play with others who stutter
or stammer, nor is it charitable to allow a child
who stutters or stammers to play with other
children who are not so afflicted.

So far-reaching are the effects of Imitation or
Mimicry that in certain cases, children have been
known to contract stuttering from associating

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 83

with a deaf-mute whose expressions were made
chiefly in the form of grunts and inarticulate
sounds.

Fright or Severe Nerve Shock: Another com-
mon cause of stammering is fright or nervous
shock, which may have been brought about in
countless ways. One boy who came to me some
time ago stated that he had swallowed a nail when
about six years of age and that this was the cause
of his stammering. The logical conclusion in a
case Kke this would be that the nail had injured
the vocal organs, but an examination proved that
there was no organic defect and that the stam-
mering was caused, not by injury directly to the
vocal organs but by the nervous shock occasioned
by swallowing the nail.

Another case was that of a stammerer who re-
ported that he had been given carbohe acid, by
mistake, when a child and that he had stammered
ever since. This, like the case of the boy who
swallowed the nail, might be expected to prove a
case of absolute physical injury or impairment of
the vocal chords, but once again, it was clear that
such was not the case and that the stammering
was brought about solely from the nervous shock
which came as a result of taking carbolic acid.

84 STAMMERING

There is still another case of a boy who felt
that he was continually being followed. This was
of course merely a hallucination, but the fright
that this boy's state of mind brought on soon
caused him to stutter and stammer in a very
pronounced manner.

Fright is a prolific cause of stuttering in small
children and may be traced in a great many cases
to parents or nurses who persist in telling chil-
dren stories of a frightful nature, or who, as a
means of discipline, scare them by locking them
up in the cellar, the closet or the garret. To these
scare-tales told to children should be added the
misguided practice of telling children that "the
bogey-man will get you" or "the policeman is
after you" or some such tale to enforce parental
commands. An instance is recalled of a woman
who created out of a morbid imagination a phan-
tom of terrible mien, who abode in the garret and
was constantly lying in wait for the small chil-
dren of the household with the professed inten-
tion of "eating them alive."

Such disciphnary methods of parents savor
much of the Inquisition and the Dark Ages and
should, for the good of the children and the

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 85

future generation they represent, be totally abol-
ished. While these methods do not, in every case,
result in stuttering or stammering, they make the
child of a nervous disposition and lay him liable
in later years to the aflBictions which accompany
nervous disorders. In some cases "tickhng" a
child has caused stammering or stuttering. Care
should be exercised here as well, for prolonged
tickling brings about intense muscular contrac-
tion especially of the diaphragmatic muscles,
which contraction is accompanied by an agitated
mental condition as well as extreme nervousness,
all of which approaches very closely to the com-
bination of abnormal conditions which are found
to be present in stammering or stuttering.

Fall or Injury as a Cause: Step into any
gathering of average American parents for a
half-hour and if the subject of the children should
come up, you are sure to hear one or more
dramatic recitals of the falls and injuries suffered
by the junior members of the household, from the
first time that Johnny fell out of bed and fright-
ened his mother nearly to death, to the day that
he was in an automobile crash at the age of 23.

86 STAMMEBING

And these tales are always closed with the pro-
found bit of confided information that these falls
are of no consequence — "nothing ever comes of
them."

While in a great measure this is true, there are
many falls and injuries suffered in childhood
which are responsible for the ills of later life,
although it is seldom indeed that they are blamed
for the results which they bring about.

Injuries and falls are a frequent cause of stut-
tering and stammering. Usually, however, an
injury results in stuttering or stammering, not
because of any change in the physical structure
brought about by the injury but rather by the
nervous shock attending it. In other words, cases
of stanmiering and stuttering caused apparently
by injury might, if desired, be traced still further
back, showing as the initial cause an injury but
as a direct cause the fright or nervous shock re-
sulting from that injury.

A good example of this is found in a case of a
young man who came to me some years ago.
He said: "When I was about five years old,
my brother and I were playing in the cellar and
I wanted to jump off the top step. When I
jumped, I hit my head on the cross-piece and it

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 87

knocked me back on the steps and I slid down on
my back, and ever since, for ten years, I have
stammered."

Here is a case where the blow on the head, or
the succession of blows on the spiral column as
the boy slid down the stairs, might have been the
cause of the trouble. More probably, it was the
combined injury, undoubtedly resulting in ia
severe nervous shock from which the boy probably
did not recover for many days.

Another man said, in describing his case during
an examination: "At the age of 16, 1 was hit on
the head with a ball. I lost my memory for one
week and when I regained it, I was a stammerer."
This is a plain case of injury resulting in imme-
diate stammering.

Still another case is that of a boy who, at the
age of three, was shot in the neck by a rifle, the
bullet coming out of his chin, which resulted in
his becoming an immediate stammerer. Here, as
in the case of the boy who swallowed the naU, it
might be expected that the cause was a defect in
the organs of speech, but I found stammering
was brought on by the nervous shock.

From these few cases of actual occurrences, it
will be seen that practically all cases of stammer-

88 STAMMEEING

ing caused by injury can be traced to the nervous
shock brought about by the injury.

Heredity as a Cause: There is little that need
be said on the subject of heredity as^ a cause of
stuttering and stammering, save that heredity is
a common cause and that children of stuttering
or stammering parents usually stammer. In this,
as in the case of any malady hereditarily trans-
mitted, it is difficult to say whether the trouble is
caused by inheritance or by constant and intiroate
association of the ehild with his parents during
the period of early speech development.

The Result of Disease: Many cases of both
stammering and stuttering may be traced back to
disease as the basic or predisposing cause. Acute
Chorea (St. Vitus Dance) is frequently the cause
of stuttering of a type known as Choreatic Stut-
tering or "Tic Speech." Infantile Cerebral Palsy
sometimes brings about a condition known as
"Spastic Speech," while whooping cough, scarlet
fever, measles, meningitis, infantile paralysis,
scrofula and rickets are sometimes responsible for
the disorder.

Disease may cause stuttering or stammering as

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 89

an immediate after effect or the speech trouble
may not show up for considerable time, depend-
ing altogether upon the individual. But regard-
less of the length of time clasping between the
disease which predisposes the individual to the
speech disorder and the time of the first evidence
of its presence, diagnosis reveals but an insignifi-
cant percentage of organic defects in these cases
resulting from disease, indicating that even here
the predominant causative factor is a mental one.

CHAPTER III

THE PECULIAEITDES OF STUTTEEING AND
STAMMERING

EACH individual case of stuttering or stam-
mering has its own peculiarities, already
more or less developed — arising from structural
differences (but not necessarily defects) in the
organs of speech, as well as differences in tem-
perament, health and nervousness; or peculiari-
ties arising from habit — ^which is the result of
previous training or neglect, as the case may be.
Sing Without Difficultly: /Almost without
exception, the stutterer or stanmierer can sing
without any difficulty, can talk to animals without
stuttering or stammering, can talk when alone
and in some cases can talk perfectly in a whisper.
Some stanmierers have less difficulty in talking
to strangers than in talking to friends or relatives
while in other cases, the condition is exactly re-
versed. A stutterer or stammerer almost always
experiences difficulty in speaking over the tele-
phone. One experimenter has shown, however.

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 91

that a stammerer can talk perfectly over the tele-
phone so long as the receiver hook is depressed
and there is no connection with another person at
the other end of the line. This experimenter
shows that immediately the receiver hook is
released and a connection is established, the halt-
ing, stumbling utterance beginsV

These peculiarities of stuttering and stammer-
ing for many years puzzled investigators and
were, in fact, finally responsible for arriving at
the true cause of stammering.

Almost every stammerer seeks for an explana-
tion of these peculiar manifestations./Why is it,
for instance, that a stammerer can sing without
difficulty, although he caimot talk? This is one
of the best evidences that could be produced to
show that stammering is the result of a lack of
mental control. The stammerer who can sing
without difficulty has no organic or inherent
defect in the vocal organs, that is sure. If the
stammerer can sing, and if this proves that he has
no organic defect, then it follows logically that
the cause of his trouble is mental and not physicaiy

Talk When Alone: The fact that a stammerer
can talk without hesitation when alone and that

92 STAMMERING

he can talk to animals may be explained by a
very simple illustration — any stammerer can try
this experiment on one of his friends who does
not stammer. He can prove that the reflex, or
what might be termed subconscious movements
of the bodily organs are more nearly normal
than the same movements consciously controlled.
Take, for instance, the regular beating of the
pulse. Let anyone who does not stammer (it
makes no diflference in trying this experiment
whether the person stammers or not, save that
we are trying to prove that the condition may be
brought about in one who is not a stammerer)
feel his own pulse for sixty seconds. Let him be
thoroughly conscious of this efPort to learn the
rapidity of its beating. If a disinterested
observer could record the pulse as normally beat-
ing and the pulse under the conscious influence
of the mind, it would be found that the pulse
under the conscious effort is beating either more
rapidly or more slowly or that it is not beating
as regularly as in the case of imconscious or reflex
action.

This same condition may be noticed in another
unconscious or reflex action — ^breathing. The

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 93

moment you become conscious of an attempt to
breathe regularly, breathing becomes difficult, re-
stricted, irregular, whereas this same action, when
unconscious, is thoroughly regular and even.

In the average or normal person who has
learned to talk correctly, speaking should be
practically an unconscious process. It should not
be necessary to make a conscious effort to form
words, nor should a normal individual be con-
scious of the energy necessary to create a word
or the muscular movements necessary to its
formation and expression.

This will explain why the stutterer or stam-
merer can talk without difficulty to animals or
when alone — there is no self-consciousness — ^no
conscious effort — no thinking of what is being
done.

Another of the peculiarities of stammering is
that the stammerer in many cases seems to be
able to talk perfectly in concert. This has long
baffled the investigator in this field, no reason
being assignable for this ability to talk in con-
nection with others. The baffling element has
been this — ^that the investigator has assumed that
the stammerer talked well in concert, whereas a

94 STAMMEEING

very careful scientist would have discovered the
stammerer to be a fraction of a second or a part
of a syllable behind the others.

You have doubtless been in church at some
time when you were not entirely famihar with
the hymn being sung, yet by lagging a note or
two behind the rest, you could sing the song, to
all appearances being right along with the others.

When you talk over the long-distance tele-
phone, the voice seems instantly to reach the
party at the other end of the line, yet we know
that a period of time has had to elapse to allow
the voice waves to move along the telephone wire
and reach the other end. The elapse of time has
been too slight to be noted by the average human
mind and the transmission seems instantaneous.
This is what happens in the case of the stammerer
who seems able to talk in concert — ^he is merely
a syllable or part of a syllable behind the rest, all
the while giving the impression nevertheless, that
he is talking just as they are.

There are many other individual peculiarities
which can be described by almost every stam-
merer. These different peculiarities are more
numerous than the cases of stammering and it
would be useless to attempt to discuss them in

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 95

detail. I will take up only two as being typical
of dozens which have come under my observation
in twenty-five years' experience.

One stammerer explains his difficulty as fol-
lows: "I find I am imable to talk and do some-
thing else at the same time. For instance, I have
difficulty in talking while dancing, while at the
table or while listening to music. If, for instance,
I wish to talk to any one while the Victrola is
being played, I unconsciously cut it off." This
is a case where the stammerer finds that all of his
faculties must be concentrated upon a supreme
effort to speak before this becomes possible. In
other words, he has not yet learned to control
sufficiently the different parts of his body so that
they may act independently. This might be
termed a lack of independent co-ordination.

In the case of another young man, he found
himself unable to control the movements of his
muscles. In describing his trouble, he said: "At
one time, when I was talking particularly bad, I
was out with some other fellows driving our car.
I started to talk, found it almost impossible and
noticed a sharp twitching of the muscles of face,
arms and limbs. Try as I might, I found I could
not control these movements and in another

yb STAMMERING

minute I had steered the car into the ditch and
wrecked it. And now," adds the young man,
"although father has a new car, I am never
allowed to drive it !"

Here was a case where the spasmodic action of
the muscles had gotten so far beyond control as
to make the ordinary pursuits of life dangerous
to the young man who stammered. These spas-
modic movements were always present — ^he told
of one occasion when he was in a barber's chair
being shaved. He attempted to say a word or
two Avhile the barber was at work upon him, with
the result that he lost control of the muscles of
face and neck, causing the barber to cut a long
gash in his neck.

This was, of course, an abnormal case of
spasmodic stamutnering, evidencing extraordinary
muscular contractions of the worst type. In
practically every case of stammering, some such
peculiarity is evident, resulting from the inabil-
ity of the stammerer's brain to control physical
actions.

CHAPTER IV

THE INTERMITTENT TENDENCY

PARADOXICAXi as the statement may
seem, it is nevertheless true that one of the
symptoms of least seeming importance marks one
of the most dangerous aspects of both stuttering
and stammering.

This is the alternating good-and-bad condition
known as the Intermittent Tendency or the
tendency of the stutterer or stammerer to show
marked improvement at times.

This seeming improvement brings about a
feeling of relief, the unreasoning fear of failure
seems for the time to have left almost entirely;
the mental strain under which the sufferer ordi-
narily labors seems to be no longer present; there
is but little worry about either present condition
or future prospects ; the nervous condition seems
to have very materially improved, self-confidence
returns quickly and with it the hope that the
trouble is gone forever or is at least rapidly dis-
appearing. With these manifestations of im-
provement come also a greater ease in concen-

98 STAMMEBINO

tration, a greater and more facile power-of-will
and an ambition that shows signs of rekindling,
with worth-while accomplishments in prospect.

Hope now bm^s high in the breast of the stut-
terer or stammerer. They go about smiling
inwardly if not outwardly, happy as the proud
father of a new boy, at peace with the world.
The sun shines brighter than it has for months or
years. Every one seems much more pleasant and
agreeable. Things which the day before seemed
totally impossible seem now to come within their
range of accomplishment. Such is the feeling of
the confirmed stutterer or stammerer during the
time of this pseudo-freedom from his speech dis-
order.

In his OAvn mind, the sufferer is quite sure that
his malady has disappeared over-night, like a bad
dream and that freedom of speech has been be-
stowed upon him as a gift from the gods on high.

The higher the hopes of the sufferer and the
greater the assurance with which he pursues the
activities of his day, the greater is his disappoint-
ment and despair when the inevitable relapse
overtakes him.

For disappointment and despair are sure to
come — just as sure as the sun is to rise in the

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 99

heavens in the morning. The condition of relief
is but temporary, and will soon pass away to be
followed by a return of his old trouble in a form
more aggravated than ever before.

Fate seems to play with the stammerer's afflic-
tion as a cat plays with a mouse, allowing him to
be free for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks
as the case may be, only to drag the dejected suf-
ferer back to his former condition — or, as is true
in many cases, worse than before.

The Recurrence: With the return of the
trouble, the bodily and mental reaction are almost
too great for the human mechanism to withstand.
Hope seems to be a word which has been lost
from the life of the stammerer. The fear of fail-
ure returns with an overwhelming force mocking
the sufferer with the thought of "Oh, how I
deceived you!!"; the mental strain is exceedingly
great — so great, in fact, that it seems as if the
breaking point has almost been reached. The
nervous condition is alarming, the sufferer not-
ing in himself an inability to work, to play, to
study or even to sit still. An observer would note
the stammerer or stutterer in this condition
fingering his coat lapels, putting his hands in his

100 STAMMERING

pockets and removing them again, biting his
finger nails, constantly shifting eyes, head, arms
and feet about. If at home, the sufferer in this
condition would probably be seen walking about
the house, unable to read, to play or listen to
music or to follow any of the accustomed activi-
ties of his life. If in business or in the shop, he
would be noticed making frequent trips to the
wash room, to the drinking fountain, to the fore-
man, picking up and laying down his tools, look-
ing out the window, shifting from one foot to
another, all of which symptoms indicate an acute
nervous condition, brought about by the return
of his trouble.

At this stage, the stammerer's confidence is
hopelessly gone, so it seems, and this feeling is
accompanied by one of depression which finds an
outlet in the expression of the firm belief and con-
viction on the part of the stutterer or stammerer
that the disorder can NEVER be cured, by any
method, although just the day before the same
sufferer would have insisted that his stuttering or
stammering had cured itself and left of its own
accord.

These conditions, both at the time of the so-
called improvement and at the time of the recur-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 101

rence of the trouble, will appear in greater or less
degree in the case of every stutterer or stammerer
whose trouble is of the intermittent type.

The Dangers of This Tendency: This period
of recurrence is accompanied by almost total loss
of the power-of-will, a marked weakening in the
ability to concentrate, and if it does not result in
insomnia (inability to sleep) puts the mind in
such a state as to make sleep of little value in
building up the body, replacing worn-out tissue
cells and restoring vital energy.

The chief danger, however, resulting from
these periods of temporary improvement, is the
belief that it instills into the mind of the suf-
ferer and more frequently into the minds of the
parents of stuttering or stammering children,
that the trouble will cure itself — a fallacy greater
than which there is none.

Stuttering and stammering are destructive
maladies. They tear down both body and mind
but they have not the slightest power to build up.
And until a strong mental and physical structure
has been built up in place of the weakened struc-
ture (which results in stammering and stutter-
ing) a cure is out of the question.

CHAPTER V

THE PROGRESSIVE TENDENCY

THE spell of intense recurrence of either
stammering or stuttering which follows a
period of improvement, often marks the period
of transition from one stage of the disorder into
the next and more serious stage. This transition,
however, may not be a conscious process — that is,
the sufferer may not in any way be informed of
the fact that he is passing into a more serious
stage of his trouble save that after the transition
has taken place, he may find himself a chronic or
constant stammerer and in a nervous and mental
condition much more acute than ever before.

Dr. Alexander Melville Bell (father of Alex-
ander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone),
who, before his death, was a speech expert of
unquestioned repute, discovered this condition
many years ago and in his work Principles of
Speech speaks of it as follows (page 234) :

"Often the transition from simple to more complicated
forms of difficulty is so rapid, that it cannot be traced or
anticipated. Perhaps some slight ailment may imperceptibly

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 103

introduce the Mgher impediment or some evil example may
draw the ill-mastered utterance at onee into the vortex of the
difficulty."

This Progressive Tendency, which we shall here-
after call the Progressive Character of the trouble
in order to distinguish it from the Intermittent
Tendency, is present in more than 98 per cent, of
the cases of stammering and stuttering which I
have examined and diagnosed.

True, there are many cases, the apparent or
manifest tendencies of which do not indicate that
the disorder is becoming more serious, but never-
theless this condition is no indication that the
trouble is not busily at work tearing out the
foundation of mental and bodily perfection.

Successive Stages: Stuttering may be con-
veniently divided into four stages, by which its
progress may be measured. These may be desig-
nated in their order as:

1 — Simple Phase
2 — ^Advanced Phase
3 — Mental Phase
4 — Compound Phase

The progress of the disorder is sure. Take the
case of a chUd eight years of age who has a case

104 STAMMERING

of simple stuttering. Permit the child to go
without attention for some time and the trouble
will have progressed into the Advanced Phase,
usually without the knowledge of the child or his
parents or without any especially noticeable sur-
face change in his condition.

Stuttering in its first phase — Simple Stutter-
ing — can justly be called a physical and not a
mental trouble. In this stage, the disorder should
be easily eradicated. The duration of cases of
Simple Stuttering is very shght, for the reason
that Simple Stuttering soon passes into the Ad-
vanced Phase, which is of a physical-mental
nature, exhibiting the symptoms of a mental dis-
turbance as well as of a physical diificulty.

From the Advanced Phase stuttering then
passes into the Mental Phase, where the mental
strain is found to be greatly intensified and the
disorder a distinct mental type instead of a phys-
ical or physical-mental trouble.

When stuttering in this stage is permitted to
continue its hold upon the suflFerer, the continued
strain, worry and fear bring about a condition of
extraordinary malignancy, in which the trouble
develops into the Chronic Mental Stage. This is
a condition bordering upon mental breakdown

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 105

and even though the complete breakdown never
occurs, the one afflicted finds himself a chronic
stutterer, without surcease from his trouble. He
further finds that he has increasing difficiilty in
thinking of the things which he wishes to say.
He seems to know, but his mind refuses to frame
the thought. In other words, he is unable to
recall the mental image of the word in mind, and
is therefore unable to speak the word. This is a
condition known as Aphasia or Thought Lapse
and represents a most serious stage of the diffi-
culty, in many cases totally beyond the possibil-
ity of relief — a condition in which no stutterer
should allow himself to get.

Stammering, being a kindred condition to stut-
tering, progresses from bad to worse in a manner
very similar. The progress of stammering may
be classified into successive stages as follows :

1 — Elementary Stage

2 — Spasmodic Stage

3 — Primary Mental Stage

4 — Chronic Mental Stage

5 — Compound Stage
Stammering in the Elementary Stage, like Stut-
tering, is a Physical Trouble. The Stammerer
has often been known to remain in the Elemen-

106 STAMMEEING

tary Stage only a few days or a few weeks, pass-
ing almost immediately into either the Spasmodic
or the Primary Mental Stage. Not all stam-
merers pass into the Spasmodic Stage of the
disorder, however, some passing directly into
Primary Mental Stage.

The Spasmodic Stage, however, is a form of
difficulty somewhat akin to the Advanced Phase
of Stuttering, for in this stage the trouble can be
said to be of Physical-Mental nature instead of
the purely physical disorder found in Elemen-
tary Stammering.

Stammering, in the Primary Mental Stage,
takes on a distinct Mental form as differentiated
from the Mental-Physical form and becomes
therefore more difficult to eradicate. If allowed
to continue, this form of Stammering (hke Stut-
tering) passes into the Chronic Mental Stage, in
which case the Stammerer usually exhibits pro-
nounced signs of Thought Lapse and finds him-
self a Chronic or Constant Stammerer, often
unable to utter a sound — and further at times
unable to think of what he wishes to say.

The progress of both Stuttering and Stam-
mering from one stage to another is very certain.
These speech disorders do not differ materially

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 107

from other human afflictions in this respect — they
do not remain constant. There is an axiom in
Nature, that "Nothing is static," which, being in-
terpreted, means, that nothing stands still. And
this applies with fuU force to the stutterer or
stammerer. If no steps are taken to remedy the
malady, he may be very sure that the disorder is
getting worse — ^not standing still or remaining
the same.

CHAPTER VI

CAN STAMMEEING AND STUTTEKING BE
OUTGEOWN?

PROBABLY the most harmful and oft-
repeated bit of advice ever given to a stam-
merer or stutterer is that which says, "Oh, don't
bother about it — you will soon outgrow the trou-
ble 1" It is the most harmful because it is palp-
ably untrue. It is so oft-repeated because the
person giving the advice knows nothing what-
ever about the cause of stammering and just as
little about its progress or treatment.

The fact that we hear of no cases of stuttering
or stammering which have been outgrown does
not seem to alter the popular and totally un-
founded belief that stammering and stuttering
can be readily outgrown.

If the reader has not read the chapter on the
causes of stuttering and stammering and the two
preceding chapters on the Intermittent Tendency
and the Progressive Character of these speech
disorders, then these chapters should be read care-
fully before going further with this one, because

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 109

it is essential to know the cause of the trouble
before it is possible to answer intelligently the
question, "Can Stammering be Outgrown?"

To any one who imderstands the nature of the
difficulty and the progress it is liable to make, the
question is almost as absurd as asking whether or
not the desire to sleep can be outgrown by stay-
ing awake. But aside from its scientific aspect —
aside from the absurdity of the question — let us
examine the facts as revealed by actual records of
cases. Let us dispense with all theory on the sub-
ject and take experience gained in a wide range
of cases as the correct guide in finding the answer.

Facts from Statistics: An examination of the
records of several thousand cases of stuttering
and stammering of all types and in all stages of
development reveals the fact that after passing
the age of six, only one-fifth of one per cent, ever
outgrow stammering. This means that out of
every five hundred people who stammer, only one
ever outgrows it. Between the ages of three and
six, the indications are more favorable, the rec-
ords in these cases showing that slightly less than
one per cent, outgrow the difficulty. That means

110 STAMMERING

that one out of every hundred children affected
has a chance, at least, of outgrowing the difficulty
between the ages of three and six, and after that
time, only one chance in five hundred.

Suppose you were handed a rifle, given five
hundred cartridges and told to hit a bull's eye at
a hundred yards, 499 times out of 500. Suppose
you were told that if you missed once you would
have to suffer the rest of your life as a stammerer.

Would you take the offer? Certainly not!!!

And yet that is exactly the opportunity that a
stammerer over six years of age has to outgrow
his trouble.

Dr. Leonard Keene Hirschberg, the medical
writer, whose suggestions appear daily in a large
list of newspapers, has this to say about the pos-
sibility of outgrowing stammering:

"Often when the attention of careless and reokless fa-
talistic relatives is attracted to a child's stammering, they
labor nnder the mistaken illusion that the child 'will out-
grow it.' A more harmful doctrine has never been perpet-
uated than the one contained in that stock phrase. As a
matter of experience, speech troubles are not 'outgrown.'
They become 'ingrown.' If not corrected at first, they go
from bad to worse. So firmly rooted and ingrained into the
child's habits does stuttering become that with every hour's
growth the chance for a cure becomes farther and farther
removed."

This statement from Dr. Hirschberg is a

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 111

straight-forward, practical and common-sense
view of the subject.

The belief that the child will outgrow the
malady often springs out of the tendency of the
stammerer to be better and worse by turns, a
condition which is fully described and explained
in the chapter on the Intermittent Tendency.
There is always present in any case of stammer-
ing the opportunity for a cessation of the trouble
for a short period of time. The visible condition
is changeable and it is this particular aspect of
the disorder that renders it deceptive and danger-
ous, for many, who jSnd themselves talking fairly
well for a short period, believe that they are on
the road to relief, whereas they are simply in a
position where their trouble is about to return
upon them in greater force than ever.

From the nature of the impediment — lack of
co-ordination between the brain and the organs of
speech — stammering cannot be outgrown — ^no
more so than the desire to eat or to talk or to
sleep.

Back of that statement, there is a very sound
scientific reason that explains why stammering
cannot be outgrown. Stammering is destructive.
It tears down but cannot build up. Every time

112 STAMMERING

the stammerer attempts to speak and fails, the
failure tears out a certain amount of his power-
of-will. And since it is impossible for him to
speak fluently except on rare occasions, this loss
of will-power and confidence takes place every
time he attempts to speak, so that with each suc-
cessive failure, his power to speak correctly be-
comes steadily lessened. The case of a stammerer
might be compared to a road in which a deep rut
has been worn. Each time a wagon passes
through this rut, it becomes deeper. The stam-
merer has no more chance of outgrowing his
trouble than the road has of outgrowing the rut.
Dr. Alexander Melville Bell recognizes the ab-
solute certainty of the progress of stammering
and the impossibility of outgrowing the difficulty,
when he states in his work. Principles of
Speech (page 234) :

"If the stanunerer or stutterer were brought tinder treat-
ment before the spasmodic habit became established, his cure
would be much easier than after the malady has become
rooted in his muscular and nervous system."

To the stammerer or stutterer or the parents of
a stammering child, experience brings no truer
lesson than this: Stammering cannot be out-
grown ; danger lurks behind delay.

CHAPTER VII

THE EFFECT ON THE MIND

IT is hardly necessary to describe to the stam-
merer who has passed beyond the first stage
of his trouble the effect of stammering on the
mind. Most any sufferer in the second or third
stages of the malady has experienced for very
brief periods the sensation of thoughts shpping
away from him and of pursuing or attempting to
pursue those thoughts for some seconds without
success, finally to find them returning like a flash.
The stammerer who recalls such an incident
will remember the feelings of lassitude or momen-
tary physical exhaustion, as well as the feeling of
weakness which followed the lapse-of-thought.
This mental flurry is but an indication of a men-
tal condition known as Thought-Lapse, which
may result from long-continued stammering,
especially a case which has been allowed to pro-
gress into the Chronic or Advanced Stage.

A Case of Aphasia: One writer, in citing in-
stances of thought-lapse, or aphasia, tells of the

114 STAMMERING

case of a man unable to recall the name of any
object until it was repeated for him. A knife,
for instance, placed on the table before him,
brought no mental image of the word represent-
ing the object, yet if the word "knife" were
spoken for him, he would immediately say, "Oh,
yes, it is a knife."

A chapter could be filled with instances of this
sort, but I shall not attempt to quote further any
of the symptoms of aphasia in a stammerer, for
in cases that become so far advanced, there is con-
siderable question as to the possibihty of bringing
about a cure. I say this, notwithstanding the fact
that my experience with students having this
tendency has been very satisfactory indeed.

Cases of unreasoning despondency, which re-
sult in the stammerer's desire to take his own life,
are so numerous as hardly to require comment.
Very frequently you see in some of the large
metropohtan papers an account of a suicide
resulting from a nervous and mental condition
brought on by stuttering and stanmiering. This
condition seems to be very marked in the cases
of stammerers between the ages of twelve and
twenty, records showing that most of the suicides
of stammerers are persons between those ages.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 115

The intense mental strain, the extreme nervous
condition, the continual worry and fear cannot
fail, sooner or later, to have its effect upon the
mind. This is clear to any stammerer, who is
familiar with the mental condition brought about
by the first few hours of one of his periods of re-
currence. Another case where the mental strain
is extremely great is that of the synonym stam-
merer — the mentally alert individual who, in
order to prevent the outward appearance of
stammering, is continually searching for syno-
nyms or less difficult words to take the place of
those which he cannot speak. This continual
searching for synonyms results in a nervous ten-
sion that is sure to tell on the mental faculties
sooner or later, and I have found, in examining
many thousands of cases, that the synonym stam-
merer is usually in a more highly nervous state
than any other type.

Mental Strain Eventually Tells: The effect
of stuttering or stammering on the sufferer's con-
centration is very marked. The sufferer notes
an inability to concentrate his mind on any sub-
ject for any length of time, finds it impossible to
pursue an education with any degree of success

116 STAMMERING

or to follow any business which requires close
attention and careful work.

The power-of-will is also affected and the
stammerer notes an inability to put through the
things which he starts and which require the exer-
cise of will power to bring to a successful con-
clusion,

A diagnosis of insanity is sometimes made in
the case of a stammerer in the advanced stages of
his malady, while in other instances the mental
aberration takes the form of a hallucination of
some sort, as in the case of the boy who was of
the belief that he was continually being followed.

But regardless of what form is taken by the
mental disorder resulting from stammering, such
cases are almost invariably found to have long
since passed into the incurable stage, although
positive statements as to the individual's condi-
tion should not be made, as a rule, without a
thorough diagnosis having first been made.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EFFECTS ON THE BODY

THE effect of stammering or stuttering
upon the physical structure is problemat-
ical. In some cases examined, a noticeable lack of
vitality has been found, together with an ahnost
total loss of active appetite, a marked inclination
toward insomnia and a generally debilitated con-
dition resulting from the nervous strain and con-
tinued fear brought on by the speech disorder.

In other cases, it has been found that the health
was but little affected and that there was no
marked departure from normal.

The physical condition of the stammerer is the
result of many factors. If plenty of fresh air
and exercise is supplied, and the mind is well-
employed so that the worry over the trouble does
not disturb the stammerer, then the chances for
being in a normal physical condition are good.

On the other hand, the boy of studious dis-
position, who is somewhat of a bookworm, keeps
close to the house and does not play with other
children of his age, will probably find time for

118 STAMMERING

much introspection, and on this account, as well
as on account of the lack of fresh air and exer-
cise, will probably be in a physical condition that
of itself demands careful attention.

It has been found in examinations of stammer-
ers and stutterers, however, that they are usually
of below normal chest expansion and that the
health, while not particularly bad, is subject to a
great improvement as a result of the proper
treatment for stammering,

Charles Kingsley, the noted English divine
and writer, and himself a stammerer many years
ago, has the following to say regarding the effect
of stammering on the body: "Continual depres-
sion of spirit wears out body as well as mind.
The lungs never act rightly, never oxygenate the
blood sufficiently. The vital energy continually
directed to the organs of speech and there used
up in the miserable spasm of mis-articulation
cannot feed the rest of the body; and the man too
often becomes thin, pale, flaccid, with contracted
chest, loose ribs and bad digestion. I have seen
a boy of twelve stunted, thin as a ghost and with
every sign of approaching consumption. I have
seen that boy a few months after being cured.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 119

upright, ruddy, stout, eating heartily and begin-
ning to grow faster than he had ever grown in
his life. I never knew a single case in which the
health did not begin to improve then and there."

CHAPTER IX

DEFECTIVE SPEECH IN CHILDBEN

(1) The Pre-S peaking Period

FROM the standpoint of speech development,
the hfe of any person between the time of
birth and the age of twenty-one years, may be
divided into four periods as follows:

From Birth to Age 2 — Pre-SpeaJcing
Period.

Age 2 to Age 6 — Formative-Setting Period
Age 6 to Age 11 — Speech-Setting Period
Age 11 to Age 20 — Adolescent Period

This chapter will deal only with the first period of
the child's speech-development, beginning with
birth and taking the child up to his second year.
The speech disorders of the later periods will be
taken up in the three following chapters.

The Pre-S peaking Period: This is the period
between the time of birth and the age of 2, and

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 121

takes the child up to the time of the first spoken
word. This does not mean, of course, that no
child speaks before the age of 2, for many chil-
dren have made their first trials at speaking at
as early an age as 15 months, and many begin to
talk by the time they are a year and a half old.
At the age of two, however, not only the pre-
cocious child but the child of slower-than-average
development should be able to talk in at least
brief, disjointed monosyllables.

Before taking up the possibility of a child ex-
hibiting symptoms of defective speech with the
first utterance, let us familiarize ourselves with
the fundamentals vmderlying the production of
the first spoken words.

The mother, who for months, perhaps, has been
listening with eager interest and fond anticipa-
tion for her child's first word to be spoken, has
httle comprehension of the vast amount of edu-
cation and training which the infant has absorbed
in order to perfect this first small utterance.
Months have been spent in listening to others, in
taking in sounds and recalling them, in impress-
ing them upon the memory by constant repeti-
tion, until finally after a year and a half, or more,

122 STAMMERING

perhaps, the circuit is completed and the first
word is put down as history.

Association of Ideas: It must be remembered
that perfect co-ordination of speech is the result
of many mental images, not of one. In saying
the word "salt," for instance, you have a graphic
mental picture of what salt looks hke; a second
picture of what the word sounds like; a "motor-
memory" picture of the successive muscle move-
ments necessary to the formation of the word;
another picture that recalls the taste of salt, and
still another that recalls the movements of the
hand necessary to write the word.

These pictures aU hingeing upon the word
"salt" were gradua,lly acquired from the time you
began to observe. You tasted salt. You saw it
at the same time you tasted it. There you see
was an association of two ideas. Thereafter,
when you saw salt, you not only recognized it by
sight, but your brain recalled the taste of salt,
without the necessity of your rea,lly tasting it.
Or, on the other hand, if you had shut your eyes
and someone had put salt on your tongue, the
taste in that case would have recalled to your

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 123

mind the graphic picture of the appearance of
salt.

As you grew older and learned to speak, your
vocal organs imitated the sound of the word
"salt" as you heard it expressed by others and
thus you learned to speak that word. At that
stage, your brain was capable of calling up three
mental pictures — an auditory picture, or a pic-
ture of the sound of the word; a graphic or visual
picture, or a picture of the appearance of salt,
and a third, which we have called a motor-
memory picture, which represents the muscular
movements necessary to speak the word. A little
later on, after you had gone to school and
learned to write, you added to these pictures a
fourth, the movements of the hand necessary to
write the word "salt."

At the sight of the mother, a duld may, for
instance, be heard to say the word "Mom" while
at the sight of the pet dog whose name is "Dot,"
be heard to say "Dot" in his childish way.

Here we have the first example in this child of
the association of ideas. The child has heard, re-
peatedly, the word "Mama" used in conjunction
with the appearance of the smiling face of his

124 STAMMERING

mother. Thus has the child acquired the hahit
of associating the word "Mama" with that face —
and the sight of the countenance after a time
recalls the sound of the associated word. Thus a
visual image of the mother transmitted to the
child through the medium of the eye, links up a
train of thought that finally results in the child's
attempt to say "Mama."

To take another example of the association of
ideas or the co-ordination of mental images neces-
sary to the production of speech, let us suppose,
for instance, that the child has been in the habit
of petting the dog and hearing him called by
name "Dot" at the same time. Now, if the dog
be placed out of the child's sight and yet in a posi-
tion where the hand of the child can reach and
pet him in a familiar way, this sense of touch, like
the sense of sight, will set up a train of thought
that results in the child making his childish
attempt to speak the name of the dog "Dot."

In other words the excitation of any sensory
organs sets up a series of sensory impulses which
are transmitted along the sensory nerve fibres to
the brain, where they are referred to the cerebel-
lum or filing case, locating a set of associated im-

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 125

pulses which travel outward from the motor area
of the brain and result in the actions, or series of
actions, which are necessary to produce a word.

It will make the action of the brain clearer if
the reader will remember the sensory nerve fibres
as those carrying messages only to the brain,
while the motor nerve fibres carry messages only
FEOM the brain.

To make still clearer this association of i^eas
so necessary to the production of speech, suppose
this same child hears the word "Dot" spoken in
his presence. He will, in all probability, begin to
repeat the word, and to search diligently for his
pet dog. Thus it will be seen that in this case the
sound of the dog's name has stirred up a train of
mental images, one of these being a visual image
of the dog himself, causing the child to look about
in search for him.

How We Learn to Talk: We learn to talk,
therefore, purely by observation and imitation.
Observation is here used in a broad sense and
means not only seeing but sensing, such as sens-
ing by smelling, touching or tasting. The child
imitates the sounds he hears and if these sounds

126 STAMMERING

emanate from those afflicted with defective utter-
ance, then it follows that the initial utterance of
the child will be likewise defective.

Source of the First Word: The first spoken
word of the child usually finds its source in some
name or word repeatedly spoken in the child's
presence. It is not usual that this first word is
marked by a defective utterance and if such
should be the case, then it is safe to say that this
faulty utterance can be traced back to the imita-
tion of some member of the family, or some child
who has been permitted to talk to the child in his
pre-speaking period. There is little to be gained
by tracing the first word back, for no very pro-
found conclusion can safely be registered with
such a basis, for no matter what the word be and
no matter whether it be correctly or imperfectly
enunciated, it is the result of imitation.

There may be two exceptions to this, however,
one being the case of a child with a physical de-
fect in the organs of speech and the other that of
a child who has inherited from the parents a pre-
disposition to stammer or stutter. These excep-
tions, however, are so rare as to hardly require
consideration. In the first (that of a physical

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 127

defect) it is hardly probable that an organic de-
fect would manifest itself in the form of stutter-
ing or stammering, but rather in some other form
of defective utterance. In the case of the in-
herited predisposition to stutter or stammer, there
is always the question which has contributed more
largely to the defective utterance — the inherited
predisposition or the association with others who
speak in a faulty manner.

Advice to Parents: It is very essential that
from the very beginning of the period of the
recording of suggestion, the child is shown the
correct and customary utterance with the best
method of its accomplishment. The child jshould
not be subjected to constant repetitions of pho-
netic defects, imperfect utterance or speech dis-
orders of any sort. The child who hears none but
perfect speech is not hable to speak imperfectly,
or at least not so liable as the child who hears
wrong methods of talking in use at all times, for
this last cannot escape the effects of his environ-
ment.

CHAPTER X

DEFECTIVE SPEECH IN CHILDREN

(2) The Formative Period

THE period in a child's speech development
dating from the second year and up to the
sixth, is called the Formative Period, for the
reason that this is the time when the child is busy'
learning new words, acquiring new habits of
speech, co-ordinating and learning properly to
associate the flood of ideas which overwhelm the
child-mind in this period.

The child-vocabulary at this time is but an echo
of the vocabulary of the home. The words that
have been used most frequently there are most
strongly impressed upon the child-mind. The
names he has heard, the objects he has seen, the
applications of speech-ideas — these alone are now
in his mind. This condition is inevitable since the
child must learn to speak by imitation — and,
since he has had no source of word-pictures other
than the home, he must have acquired facility in

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 129

the use of only those words he has had an oppor-
tunity to hear.

President Wilson, whose faultless diction, re-
markable fluency of expression and discriminat-
ing choice of words, made him a master speaker
and writer, attributed his facility to the
training he received in the home of his father, a
minister, where the children were constantly
encouraged in the use of correct English and in
the broadening and enrichment of their store of
words.

From the form of simple child-speech, made
up often of monosyllables or of a few brief and
easy sentences, the child must now evolve a more
complicated form of thought-expression, with the
use of connectives, descriptions and a finer
gradation of color than heretofore.

This process may be materially aided by the
parent by the repetition of the child's own utter-
ances, proving to the child that these are correct,
that he is being understood and giving him con-
fidence to venture further out in his attempts at
speech amplification. This encouragement of the
child-mind in its attempts to speak is so impor-
tant that it is worth while to give some simple

130 STAMMERING

examples of what is meant, in order that the
point may be clearly understood. Let us take,
first, the example of a mother who, from some
cause, allows herself to be of a nervous and irrita-
ble disposition. The small child may say, "Mam-
ma, I want a tooky." The mother, either through
indifference or through habit, says, "You want
•what?" This, first of all, is like a dash of cold
water to the child in his uncertain state of mind
as to the correctness of his utterance. The child
repeats, "I want a tooky," and in all probability
gets the further inquiry, "You want a tooky —
what's that?" which undermines the child's confi-
dence in himself and in his ability to talk.

On the other hand, the mother who under-
stands the needs of the child from a speech-form-
ing standpoint wiU not insist on the child repeat-
ing the word time after time as if it was not
understood. She will strive hard to understand
the first time, even though the expression is im-
perfect and difficult of interpretation, and her
nimble mind having figured out what it is that the
child desires," wiU say, "Baby wants a cooky?"
Here the chUd, in his comparatively new occupa-
tion of talking, finds a deal of delight in knowing

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 131

that his words have been properly comprehended
and feels a new confidence in his ability to express
thoughts — which confidence, by the way, is essen-
tial to normal speech development in the child.
It has the further effect of correcting the tend-
ency of faulty utterance, and in time will result
in the complete eradication of the natural
tendency to "baby-talk" which is too often en-
couraged and aided by the habit of parents in
repeating the baby-talk. In no case, should de-
fective utterances be repeated, no matter how
"cute" the utterance may seem at the time. Many
speak indistinctly throughout their entire life
simply because of the habit of their parents in
repeating baby-talk, thus confirming incorrect
images of numerous words.

Speech Disorders in the Formative Period:
The Formative Period may mark the beginning
of a speech disorder and in many instances
chronic cases of stuttering and stammering may
be traced to a simple disorder which first mani-
fested itself in the ages between 2 and 6.

Speech disorders arising in this period may be
traced to any one of a number of causes. In a

132 STAMMERING

child of five, for instance, the diagnostician would
look for evidences of an inherited tendency to
stammer or stutter; he would look also for cir-
cumstances which would show that the child had
acquired defective utterance through mimicry of
others similarly afilicted or through the uncon-
scious imitation of the defective speech of those
immediately about him.

Failing to find any hereditary tendency to a
speech defect or any evidence that the disorder
had been acquired by imitation or mimicry, the
next step would be to determine whether or not
the trouble had been caused by disease or injury.

As explained in Chapter III, the diseases of
childhood, such as Whooping Cough, Scarlet
Fever, Diphtheria, Acute Chorea, Infantile
Cerebral Palsy and Infantile Paralysis are fre-
quently the cause of stuttering or stammering,
and a history showing a record of these diseases
would result in a very careful examination for
the purpose of determining if they had resulted
in a form of defective utterance.

Advice to Parents: But whatever the cause of
the trouble, care should be taken to see that it
grows no worse and every attempt should be

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 133

made to eradicate it at this early stage. Like a
fire, speech disorders in their early stages are
insignificant compared to their future progress
and can be much more readily eradicated then
than later. Inasmuch as a child of less than eight
years is hardly old enough to undertake institu-
tional treatment successfully, it behooves the
parent of the stammering or stuttering child to
render what home assistance is possible, during
this period. The old adage, tried and true, that
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure" is never more correctly applied than here.
A few simple suggestions may aid in preventing
the trouble from progressing rapidly to a serious
stage, even though these suggestions do not erad-
icate the disorder altogether.

First of all, the child should be kept in the very
best possible physical condition. This means, too,
plenty of fresh air and sunshine, without which
any child is less than physically fit.

It is important that the child be not allowed to
associate with others who stammer or stutter, or
who have any form of speech disorder. Imita-
tion or mimicry, as heretofore stated, is the most
prolific cause of speech trouble and to place a
child who stammers or stutters in the company

134 STAMMERING

of an older person similarly afflicted, is to invite
a serious form of the disorder.

Nervousness, while not the cause of speech dis-
order, is an aggravant of the trouble and should
be avoided. The child should not be allowed to
engage in anything which has a tendency to make
him nervous or highly excited. Such a condition
will aggravate the speech trouble, make it worse
and tend to fix it more firmly in the child.

Furthermore, parents should not scold or be-
rate the child because he stammers or stutters.
No child stammers or stutters because he wants
to, but because he has not the power to control
his speech organs. In other words, the child can-
not help himself — and scolding and harsh words
simply cause confusion and dejection which in
turn react to make a more serious condition.

The Chances for Outgrowing: The author's
examination and diagnosis of more than 20,000
cases of speech disorders has revealed the fact
that at this period in the life of the child afHicted
Avith stammering or stuttering, slightly less than
1 per cent, outgrow the difficulty. With proper
parental care it might be possible to increase this
percentage, perhaps double it, but this should

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 135

hardly be called "outgrowing." In the mind of
the average person, the expression "outgrowing
his stammering" means that the stammerer has
been able to go ahead without giving the slightest
heed to his trouble and that it has, by some
magical process, ceased to exist. This is a fal-
lacy. Stammering and stuttering are both de-
structive and progressive and no amount of
indifference will result in relief — ^but on the other
hand, will terminate in a more malignant type of
the disorder. It is true, however, that more care
on the part of the parent in looking after the
formation of speech habits in the Pre-Speaking
and Formative Periods of the child's speech de-
velopment, would result in fewer cases of chronic
stammering and stuttering in later life.

CHAPTER XI

DEFECTIVE SPEECH IN CHILDBEN

(3) The Speech-Setting Period

THE period from the age of 6 to the age of
11 (inclusive) is in truth the Speech- Setting
Period, for it is at this time that the child's speech
habits become more or less fixed, and his vocabu-
lary, while constantly developing, manifests tend-
encies which may be traced through into the later
life of the adult.

This Speech-Setting Period marks two very
important events in the speech development of
the child. First, it marks the period of second
dentition or the time when the milk-teeth are
"shed" and the new and permanent teeth take
their place. This is a critical period and statistics
show that there is a marked increase in speech
disorders at this time. The second event of im-
portance, both to child and to parents, is the
beginning of the work in school. It must be
remembered that heretofore the child has been
under the watchful care of the parents during
most of his hours, while now, with the beginning

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 137

of his work in school, he is having his first small
taste of facing the world alone — even if only for
a httle while each day.

Regardless of the attitude which the child takes
toward his work in school, this work presents new
problems and new possibilities of danger from a
standpoint of speech development. A slight de-
fect in utterance which at honie is passed over
from long familiarity, is the subject of ridicule
and laughter at school. For the first time in the
child-life, the stammering or stuttering young-
ster may experience the awful feeling of being
laughed at and made fun of, without exactly
knowing why. He will have to face the ques-
tions of his thoughtless companions who will at-
tempt to make him talk merely for the sake of
entertaining themselves. To the child who stut-
ters or stammers, this is torture in its worst form.
The humiliation and disgrace which the stammer-
ing child must undergo on the way to school, in
the school-yard and on the way home again, is a
tremendous force in the life of the youngster — a
force which may seriously impede his mental de-
velopment, his physical welfare and his progress
in school. He finds himself unlike others, de-
ficient in some respect and yet not realizing the

138 STAMMERING

exact nature of his deficiency or understanding
why it should be a deficiency. He stands up to
recite with a constantly increasing fear of failure
in his heart and unless he is fortunate enough to
have a teacher who understands, is apt to fare
poorly at her hands, also. Even in the case of the
teacher who does understand the child's difficulty
and consequently permits written instead of oral
recitations, there is a constant feeling of inability
on the part of the child, a knowledge of being
less-whole than those about him, which saps the
self-confidence so necessary to proper mental de-
velopment and normal progress. He further-
more misses much of the value of the studies that
he pursues, for, as a noted educator has said, "In
order for a child to remember and fix clearly in
his own mind the things he studies, those things
must be repeated in oral recitation." And this
the stammering or stuttering child cannot do.

Sending Stammering Children to School:
With these facts in mind, the question arises as to
whether it is ever policy to send a stammering
or stuttering child to school, knowing that he is
afflicted with a speech-disorder. In the first
place the parents who send a stammering child to

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 139

school exhibit a careless disregard for the rights
of others and a further disregard for the many
children who must, of a necessity, associate with
this stammering child, with all the consequent
dangers of infection by imitation or mimicry.
Speech defects of a remediable nature among
school children could be materially reduced by
refusing to allow children so aflBicted to play or
in any way associate with the others who talk
normally.

Aside, however, from the question of the par-
ents' obligation to society and to the children of
others (which should be, in the end, a means of
protection for their own children, as well) there
is the bigger and more selfish aspect of the ques-
tion, viz. : the effect on the child himself.

No better suggestion can be given than that
contained in "The Habit of Success" by Luther
H. Gulick, who says :

"If you take a child that is really mentally subnormal and
put him in school with normal children, he cannot do well
no matter how hard he tries. He tries again and again and
fails. Then he is scolded and punished, kept after school
and held up to the ridicule of the teacher and other students.
When he goes out on the playground, he cannot play with
the vigor and skill and force of other children. In the plays,
he is not wanted on either side; he is always 'it' in tag. So

140 STAMMEEING

he sooB acquires the presentment that he is going to fail no
matter what he does, that he cannot do as the others do and
that there is no use in trying. So he gives up trying. He
quits.

"That is the largest element in the lives of the feeble-
minded — that conviction that they cannot do like others, and
is the first thing they must overcome if they are to be helped.
There is no hope whatever of growth, as long as they foresee
they are going to fail."

The futility of trying to "cram" an education
into a subnormal child has never been better
expressed than in the statement quoted above.
There is nothing to be gained by insisting that
a child who is ill, attend school — and it should be
remembered that so far as school is concerned, the
child who stutters or stammers is just as ill as
the one with the measles, save that the illness of
the stammering or stuttering child is chronic and
persistent, while that of the other is temporary.

Chances for Outgrowing at This Age: The
opportunities for the stammering or stuttering
child to outgrow his trouble are about five times
as great in the Formative Period, between the
ages of 2 and 6, as they are in the Speech-Setting
Period, from 6 to 11. In the former, as previ-
ously explained, statistics show that about 1 per
cent. — or one in a hundred — outgrow their trou-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 141

ble before the age of 6, while after this age the
percentage drops to one-fifth of one per cent, or
about one person in every five hundred, which is
a very small chance indeed.

In speaking of the tendency of parents to wait
in the hope that speech disorders will be out-
grown, Walter B. Swift, A. B., S. B., M. D., has
this to say:

"This suggestion may frequently be offered, even by the
physician. Many people say, 'Let the case alone and it will
outgrow its defect.' No treatment could be more foolish
than this. No advice could be more ill-advised; no sugges-
tion could show more ignorance of the problems of speech.
Such advisers are ignorant of the harm they are doing and
the amount of mental drill of which they are depriving the
pupil. Nor do they know at all whether or not the case will
ever ' outgrow ' its defect. In brief, this advice is without
foundation, without scientific backing, and should never be
followed."

Advice to Parents: Parents of children be-
tween the ages of 6 and 11 who stammer or stut-
ter, should follow out the suggestions given in the
previous chapter, with the idea of removing the
difficulty in its incipiency if possible, or at least
of preventing its progress. If by the time the
child is eight years of age, the defective utterance
remains, this fact is proof that the speech dis-
order is of a form that will not yield to the simple

142 STAMMERING

methods possible vinder parental treatment at
home and the child should be immediately placed
under the care of an expert whose previous
knowledge and experience insures his ability to
correct the defective utterance quickly and per-
manently.

In all cases after the age of 8, the matter should
be taken firmly in hand. There should be no
dilly-dallying, no foolish belief in the possibility
of outgrowing the trouble, for whatever chances
once existed are now past. First of all, the child's
case should be diagnosed by an expert with the
idea of ascertaining the exact nature of the speech
disorder, the probable progress of the trouble, the
present condition, the curability of the case and
the possibilities for early relief. A personal
diagnosis should be secured where possible, but
when this cannot be brought about, a written
description and history of the case should enable
the capable diagnostician of speech defects to
diagnose the case in a very thorough manner.
The result of this diagnosis should be set down
in the form of a report in order that the parent
may have a permanent record of the child's con-
dition and may be able to take the proper steps
for the eradication of the speech disorder. With

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 143

this information as to the child's case in hand,
parents should be guided by the advice of Alex-
ander Melville Bell, one of the greatest speech
specialists of his age, who said:

"Stuttering and Hesitation are stages through which the
stammerer generally passes before he reaches the eUmax of
his difficulty, and if he were brought under treatment before
the spasmodic habit became established, his cure would be
much more easy than after the malady has become rooted in
his muscular and nervous system."

Truly may it be said of the stanunering child at
this period, that "There is a tide in the affairs of
men, which taken at the flood, leads on to for-
tune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound
in shallows and in miseries."

CHAPTER XII

THE SPEECH DISORDERS OF YOUTH

YOUTH, as we shall define it from the stand-
point of the development of speech disorders,
is the period from the age of 12 to the age of 20.
From the twelfth to the twentieth year is a very
critical period in the life of both the boy and the
girl who stammers — a period which should have
the watchfulness and care of the parent at every
step. This is known as the period of adolescence
and may be said to mark the time of a new birth,
when both mind and body undergo vital changes.
New sensations, many of them intense, arise, and
new associations in the sense sphere are formed.

To the boy or girl passing through this stage
of life, it is a period of new and unknown forces,
emotions and feelings. It is a time of uncer-
tainty. The sure-footed confidence of childhood
gives way to the unsure, hesitating, questioning
attitude of a mind filled with new and strange
thoughts and a body animated by new and
strange sensations.

These are the symptoms of a fundamental

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 145

change, the outward manifestations of the pass-
ing from childhood to manhood or womanhood.
This is childhood's equinoctial storm, marking the
beginning of the second season of life's year. In
this storm, it is the paramount duty of the parent
to be a safe and ever-present pilot through the
sea that to the captain of this craft is as vmcharted
as the route to the Indies in Columbus' day.

The revolution now taking place in both the
mental and bodily processes results in a lack of
stability — an "unsettledness" that manifests itself
in restlessness, nervousness, self -consciousness or
morbidness, taking perhaps the form of a per-
sistent melancholia or desire to be alone.

At this time in the life of the boy or girl, the
possibilities for stuttering or stammering to
secure a firm hold on their muscular and nervous
system are very great. Next to the age of second
dentition, children at the age of puberty are most
susceptible to stammering or stuttering.

During adolescence, the annual rate of growth
in height, weight and strength is increased and
often doubled or more. The power of the dis-
eases peculiar to childhood abates and the liability
to the far more numerous diseases of maturity
begins, so that with the liability to both it is not

146 STAMMERING

strange that this period is marked at the same
time by increased morbidity.

The significant fact about stuttering in chil-
dren as far as it relates to the period of
adolescence, is that this stage marks the most
pronoimced susceptibility to the malady as well
as the time during which it may most quickly pass
into the chronic stage. Examinations show that
the largest percentage of stutterers among boys
was at the ages of eight, thirteen and sixteen,
while the largest percentage among girls was at
the ages of seven, twelve and sixteen — the earlier
age of severity in girls being explained by the
fact that the girl reaches a given state of maturity
more quickly than a boy.

Parents of stammering or stuttering children
between the ages of twelve and twenty, may well
note with alarm the increasing nervousness, the
hyper-sensitive feelings, the overpowering self-
consciousness and the morbid tendencies which
mark a state of mental depression, brooding and
worry over troubles both real and fancied.

Period of Most Frequent Suicide: Statistics
gathered over a period of years indicate that the

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 147

cases of suicide of stammering children occur at
this time with greater frequency than at any
other. Rarely has a case been found where a
child has attempted to take his life before the age
of 12 and seldom after the age of 20.

At frequent intervals there can be found in any
of the large papers, a very brief note of the suicide
of a child who had foimd life too much of a
burden for him to bear and who, as a conse-
quence, fell to brooding over his troubles and as
the easiest way out of them, took his own life. A
Chicago boy recently attempted suicide by in-
haling gas, although he was discovered before it
was too late. Another took his own life by shoot-
ing himself with a revolver given him some years
ago as a birthday present; still another took
poison as the easiest way out of his humiliation,
embarrassment and despair.

The average age of these boys was about 16%
years, which marks a period of intense self-con-
sciousness and extreme sensitiveness of the youth
to ridicule and disgrace.

Tendency to Rapid Progress: The condition
of the young person between the ages of 12 and

10

148 STAMMERING

20 can hardly be considered to be normal in any
way. The physical processes are iin-normal and
are undergoing a change, and the mental facul-
ties, too, are un-normal, overwhelmed as they are
with new emotions and sensations. The nervous
condition is marked by a much higher nervous
irritability, which contributes to a condition most
favorable for the rapid progress of the speech
disorder, always easily aggravated by a sub-
normal physical, mental or nervous condition.
Cases where the Intermittent Tendency is a pro-
nounced characteristic are liable at this period to
find the alternate periods of relief and recurrence
to be more frequent than ever before and to note
a marked tendency of their trouble to recur with
constantly increasing malignancy. Cases that at
the age of 11 or 12, for instance, might have been
said to have been in an incipient state, have com-
monly been known at this age to pass through
the successive intermediate stages of the trouble
and become of a deep-seated and chronic nature
in a surprisingly short period of time.

In some cases where the transition from a sim-
ple to the complex form of the difficulty takes
place at this age, it is found that the disorder has
passed beyond the curable stage, in which case,

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 149

of course, nothing is left to the unfortunate stam-
merer but the prospects of a life of untold misery
and torture, deprived of companionship, ostra-
cized from society and debarred from participa-
tion in either business or the professions.

Chances for Outgrowing: The chances for
outgrowing a speech disorder at this age are con-
siderably less than at any other time in the previ-
ous life of the individual. The unbalanced gen-
eral condition tends to make the stammerer more
susceptible instead of less so. As previously ex-
plained, this period marks the time when speech
disorders progress rapidly from bad to worse and,
as a consequence, the chances for outgrowing
diminished from 1 per cent, before the age of 6 to
practically zero after the age of 12.

Suggestions: There is little that can be said
for the good of the young person at these ages.
The time for home treatment is past. The simple
suggestions offered for the assistance of those in
the Formative or Speech-Setting Periods would
be of little value here because the growth of the
individual has made the eradication of the trouble
quite improbable without a complete re-education

150 STAMMERING

along correct speech lines — best obtained from an
institution devoting its efforts to that work.
Whatever steps are taken, however, should be
taken before the disorder has become rooted in
the mviscular and nervous system and before it
has passed into the Chronic Stage.

CHAPTER XIII

"WHEBE DOES STAMMERING LEAD?

IN answering the question: "Where Does
Stammering Lead?" nothing truer can be
found than the words of a man who has stam-
mered himself:

"What pen can depict the woefulness, the intensified suf-
fering of the inveterate stammerer, confirmed, stereotj^ed in
a malady seemingly worse than death? Are the afflictions,
mental and physical, of the pelted, brow-beaten, down-
trodden stutterer imaginary? Nonsense! There is not a
word of truth in the idea. His sufferings all the time, day
in and day out, at home and abroad, are real — ^intense —
purgatorial. And none but those who have drunk the bitter
cup to its dregs feel and know its death, death, double
death 1 These afflicted ones die daily and the graves to them
seem pleasant and delightful. The sufferings of the deaf
and dumb are myths — but a drop in the ocean compared to
what I endured 1 And who eared for mef Who? I was the
laughing stock, a subject of scoffing and ridicule, often. I
could fill an octavo with the miseries I endured from early
childhood tiU the elapsement of forty summers."

Thus does the Rev. David F. Newton, himself
a stammerer for forty years, speak of stammering
and stuttering and its effects. And Charles
Kingsley, a noted English divine and author who

152 STAMMERING

stammered, paints the stammerer's future in
words of experience that no stammerer should
ever forget:

"The stammerer's life ia a life of misery, growing with
his growth and deepening as his knowledge of life and his
aspirations deepen. One comfort he has, truly, that his life
will not be a long one. Some may smile at this assertion;
let them think for themselves. How many old people have
they ever heard stammer? I have known but two. One is a
very slight case, the other a very severe one. He, a man of
fortune, dragged on a very painful and pitiful existence
— nervous, decrepit, asthmatic — kept alive by continual
nursing. Had he been a laboring man, he would have died
thirty years sooner than he did."

To the man who has never been through the suf-
fering that results from stammering or who has
never been privileged to watch the careers of
stammerers and stutterers over a period of years,
these final results of stammering seem impossible.
The inexperienced observer can only ask in won-
der: "How can stammering or stuttering bring
a man or woman to these depths of despair?"

To the stammerer who has but begun to taste
the sorrows of a stammerer's life these effects of
stammering appear to be the ultimate result of
an unusual case — never the inevitable result of
his own trouble.

Doubtless if Charles Kingsley were with us

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 153

today, he could look back and tell ms of the day
when he, too, was sure that stammering was but
a trifle. He, too, could point out the time when
he felt that sometime, somehow, his stammering
would magically depart and leave him free to talk
as others talked. And yet, having gone down the
road through a long life of usefulness, Kingsley's
is the voice of a mature experience which says to
every stammerer: "Beware — ^there are pitfalls
ahead!" And this man is right.

Results of Stammering: Experience proves
that the results of continued stammering or stut-
tering are definite and positive, and that they are
inevitable. Stammering is known to be at the
root of many troubles. It causes nervousness,
self -consciousness and sometimes brings about a
mental condition bordering on complete mental
breakdown. It causes mental sluggishness, dis-
sipates the power-of-concentration, weakens the
power of will, destroys ambition and stands be-
tween the sufferer and an education.

There is no afiliction more annoying or embar-
rassing to its victim than starmnering. No mat-
ter how bright the intellect may be, if the tongue
is unable easily and quickly to formulate the

154 STAMMERING

words expressing thought, the individual is held
back in business and is debarred from the pleas-
ures of social and home life.

Stammering is a drawback to children in
school. To be imable to recite means failure. It
means humiliation. It means disgrace in the eyes
of the other pupils. And finally, it means valu-
able time wasted — ^not in getting an education —
but in suffering untold misery in TRYING to
get one — and failing.

A boy fourteen years of age, who has failed to
advance in school, and who finds stammering a
handicap of serious proportions, tells me :

"I am fourteen years old and only in the fifth grade. I
am afraid to recite because of my stuttering, and because
of my not reciting when my teachers call on me, I am get-
ting low marks in school and do not know if I will ever get
through."

One mother writes:

"My little girl will not go to Sunday School because she
does not like the other children to look at her so straight
when she stammers."

A boy says :

"I am thirteen years old and in school. I am afraid to
recite because of my stuttering; and because of my not
reciting I get low average in studies."

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 155

Another boy told me:

"I am now in the third year of my high school course.
On the first day of the term I went to school, I made such a
miserable thing of myself that I quit. The school superin-
tendent and principal saw me when I came back the second
day as I was carrying my books out. Of course they stopped
me and I made an explanation. I couldn't teU any of the
new teachers ray name. It was impossible to make any kind
of a recitation. I was introduced to all of my teachers and
have been stumhling along ever since with grades anywhere
from to 60."

A Social Drawback: No stammerer but knows
that his malady marks him for the half-sup-
pressed smiles of thoughtless people and the
unkind remarks of those who really know nothing
of the suffering which these unkind remarks
occasion. It is true, but unfortunate, that the
stammerer is not wanted in any social gathering,
he can provide no entertainment, save at his own
expense, and of all people he is most ill at ease
when out among others.

A young lady writes :

"Mr. Bogue, I would give one of my eyes to get rid of
stammering. That is aU I am after. Please excuse this
awful writing. I AM SO NEEVOUS I CAN HAEBLY
GET THE PEN INTO THE INK BOTTLE."

156 STAMMEEINQ

Here is a letter from one man :

"I am 36 years old, and have stammered for 28 years. I
don't stammer so bad, but just bad enough to spoil my life.
I always have to take a back seat in company. I belong to
three lodges, but I do not take part in any of them because
I am afraid they will ask me to take part in the order. It
would make me feel cheap. I have often felt like commit-
ting suicide, but I would pull my nerves together and make
the best of it again. I am now a janitor at a school."

Hopeless in Business: There is not a yoimg
man stammerer in this whole country who would
not work night and day to be cured of stammer-
ing if he realized the hopelessness of trying to be
a success in a business way, handicapped by stam-
mering, tmable to talk fluently, clearly and in-
telhgently.

A man says:

"I am 33 years old and single. I have stammered ever
since I was a child. It has made me nervous. At my age
it is very embarrassing to me to stutter. I kept getting
more nervous from year to year, and finally I have had
to give up my position. I was a long-hand biller for ten
years, but I am now troubled with writer's cramp and
unable to do much. I can't get a clerk's job because of my
stuttering."

And here is another — a man grown, who too late
realized the futility of trying to get an education

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 157

while yet handicapped by stammering. He said,
a while back :

"I must say my stammering has spoiled my life and
robbed me of a successful career. I would give much if my
parents had sent me to be cured of stammering when a boy,
instead of trying as they did to educate me."

Stammerer Appears Illiterate: No matter
how great the stammerer's knowledge may be, he
often appears to be illiterate simply because he is
unable to express himself in words. His knowl-
edge is locked up by his infirmity, the same as
though he had a steel band drawn over his mouth
and fastened with a padlock which he is unable
to unlock for want of a proper key. The man
with the locked-up knowledge is under as great
a handicap as the man without knowledge.

A man who had a chance to be a big success in
business, had he not stammered, says :

"Stammering is the cause of all my trouble. My earlier
associates have shunned me for several years, and I have
sought the worst class of dives and the lowest kind of com-
panions, where I was reasonably certain that I would not
come in contact with those with whom I had associated in
earlier years. My eyes are wet with tears — tears of remorse
and regret — because I see no chance in life for me now."

The stammerer who thinks that success comes to

158 STAMMERING

the man who stammers — who believes that the
business world is willing to put up with anything
less than fluent speech, should read this heart-
broken letter from a young man :

"I am a bookkeeper, and dearly love my work, but am
afraid that I am going to have to give it up because my
speech is getting worse, and I have noticed that the boss has
mentioned it to me a couple of times now, and it almost
breaks my heart to know that my position is going to get
away from me. No one realizes how much one suffers, and
I'm afraid I'm going to brestk down with nervous prostra-
tion soon. When one day is over with me, I wonder how I
am going to get through with the next one."

What are the results of stammering? Should
anyone ask that question, I could point to in-
stances in my own experience that would prove
that almost every undesirable condition of human
existence may be the result of stammering. I
have seen young men who are business failures,
dejected, hopeless, drifting along, men who in
early years were intellectual giants, and who
before their death were mere children in mental
power, because they allowed stammering to
destroy every valuable faculty they possessed.

I could point to children whom stammering
had held back almost from the time they began
to talk — ^give cases of young men depressed, em-

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 159

barrassed, unsuccessful, because they stammer —
cite instances of all the worth-while things in life
turned from the path of a yoxmg woman because
she stammered.

Yet in the past, not one of these knew what
was coming. Not one realized where the trail
was leading. No stammerer can of himself see
into the future. But he can, at least, look into
the future of others, who, like himself, are stam-
merers, and avoid the pitfalls into which they have
fallen and save himself the mistakes they have
made.

PART III

THE CURE OF STAMMERING
AND STUTTERING

CHAPTER I

CAN STAMMERING REALLY BE CURED?

IT has only been a few years since the impres-
sion was abroad that stammering was incur-
able. Not a particle of hope was held out to the
afflicted individual that any semblance of a cure
was possible by any method. This erroneous idea
that stammering could not be cured grew up in
the mind of the average person as a result of one
or all of the following conditions :

1st — The inability of the stammerer to cure himself and
his further inability to outgrow the trouble, (although he
was repeatedly told that he would outgrow it) was the
first reason that led to the foolish and totally unfounded
belief that stammering could not be cured.

2nd — The principles of speech and the un-normal condition
known as stammering have been surrounded with a great
deal of mystery in the years gone by. The idea has been
widely prevalent that the afBietion was one sent by Provi-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 161

dence as a punishment for some act committed by the
sufferer or his forbears. This and many other ideas bor-
dering upon superstition, are responsible, too, to a great
degree for the belief that stammering is incurable.

3rd — Even if an attempt to cure stammering was made, this
attempt was based upon the ' ' supposition ' ' that stammer-
ing was a physical trouble, due to some defect in the
organs of speech. It followed that since no one was ever
able to discover any physical defect, no one knew the true
cause of the disorder, nor how to treat it successfully.

4ith — Unfortunately there have been in the field a number of
irresponsible charlatans, preying upon the stammerer with
claims to cure, while in fact they knew little or nothing of
the disorder, had never stammered themselves, nor had the
slightest knowledge of the correct methods of procedure
in the cure of stammering. The failure of such as these
to do any good led to a widespread belief that there was
no successful method for the eradication of speech dis-
orders.

From an experience covering more than twenty-
five years, during which time the author has corre-
sponded with 200,000 persons who stammer and
has personally met and diagnosed about 20,000
cases, it has been proved that all of these beliefs
are fallacies of the worst character. Given any
person who stutters or stammers and who has no
organic defect and is as intelligent as the average
child of eight years, it has been found that the
Unit Method of Restoring Speech will eradicate

162 STAMMERING

the trouble at its source and by removing the
cause, entirely remove the defective utterance.

The Stammerer s Case Not Hopeless: Stam-
merers should fix this fact firmly in mind : Stam-
mering can be cured! There is hope, positive,
definite hope for every case — this fact is based on
every imaginable form of stuttering or stammer-
ing. It is not, in other words, a mere idle state-
ment based on theory or guess-work, but a mathe-
matical truth, taken from experience.

I recall very well the case of a man of 32 who
came to me for help after five of the so-called
schools for stammerers had failed to afford him
any relief. Quite naturally this man was a con-
firmed skeptic. He did not beheve that there was
any cure for him. Anyone who had been through
the trials that he had experienced would have felt
the same way. But he placed himself imder treat-
ment, nevertheless, and in a few weeks' time, the
Unit Method had restored him to perfect speech.
He left entirely convinced that stammering could
be cured, because it had been done in his own case
which had so long seemed beyond all hope.

Many years afterward, he wrote a letter which
I take the liberty of reproducing here for the

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 163

encouragement and inspiration of everyone who
is similarly afflicted and who feels as this man felt
— that he is incurable :

"I tried to be cured of stammering at five different times
by five different men at a total cost of more than one tliou-
sand dollars. None of them cured me. Then I decided to
try the Unit Method. Nine years ago I did so — a decision
that I have never regretted. It was evident that this method
was based on a comprehensive knowledge of the art of
speech. I am now a piano salesman and talk by the hour
all day long; talk over the telephone perfectly; and many
tell me that I speak more distinctly than the majority of
people who have never stammered. I believe this is because
I was taught through the Unit Method the very funda-
mentals of speech."

This man's case is typical of the hundreds of fail-
ures-to-cure which are responsible for the belief
that stammering cannot be cured. The fact that
he had made five separate attempts to be cured
would, in the mind of the average man, establish
the fact that stammering cannot be cured and yet
it is seen that even in this extreme case, under the
application of the proper scientific methods, the
stammerer found freedom of speech without
unusual difficulty and in a comparatively short
time.

11

CHAPTER II

CASES THAT "CURE THEMSELVES"

NOT infrequently from some source will be
heard a story, many times retold, to the
effect that "So-and-so" who stammered for many
years has been cured — that the trouble has
magically disappeared and that he stammers no
longer.

What is the cause of this? What brings about
such a miraculous cure?

The answer depends upon the case. Usually,
the story is much more a story than a fact. Few
indeed have been the stammerers who have ever
actually heard the man stammer before "his
trouble cured itself" and then heard him talk per-
fectly afterwards. Like the stories of haunted
houses, there is nothing to substantiate the truth
of the statement, there is no evidence by which
the story may be checked up.

In the rare cases where the facts would seem
to indicate the truth of the statement, it will be
found that the person in question never really
stammered — that his trouble was something else

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 165

— lalling, lisping, or some defect of speech that
was mistaken for stammering or stuttering.

Another case of apparent miraculous cure is
the case of the stammerer who, finding him-
self unable to say words beginning with certain
letters, begins the practice of substituting easy
soimds for those that are difficult and thus, pro-
vided he has only a slight case, leads many to
believe that he talks almost perfectly. This fel-
vlow is known as the "Synonym Stammerer" and
is usually a quick thinker and a ready "substi-
tuter-of -words." If he has stammered noticeably
for some time imtil those in his vicinity have
become acquainted with his affliction, and then
discovers the plan of substituting easy sounds for
hard ones, he may for a time conceal his impedi-
ment and lead certain of his friends to believe
that he no longer stammers.

This "Synonym Stammerer" is storing up end-
less trouble for himself, however, for the mental
strain of trying to remember and speak syno-
nyms of hard words entails such a great drain
upon his mind as to make it almost impossible to
maintain the practice for any great length of
time. In this connection, let every stammerer be

166 STAMMERING

warned to avoid this practice of substitution of
words. It is a seeming way out of difficulty some-
times, but you will find that you are only making
your malady worse and laying up difficulties for
yourself in the future.

CHAPTER III

CASES THAT CANNOT BE CUBED

IN an experience in meeting stammerers and in
curing stammering it is only natural to as-
sume that I have come across certain cases which
could not be cured. It is only natural, too, to
expect that in such a wide experience it would be
possible to determine what cases are incurable
and why.

Cases of incurable speech impediments may be
divided into seven classes :

( 1 ) — Those with organic defects ;

(2) — Those with diseased condition of the
brain ;

(3) — Those who have postponed treatment
until their malady has progressed so
far into the chronic stage as to make
treatment valueless ;

(4) — Those who refuse to obey instructions ;

(5) — Those who persist in dissipation, re-
gardless of effects;

(6) — Those of below normal intelligence;

168 STAMMEKING

(7) — Those who will not make the effort to
be cured.

Stutterers and stammerers whose trouble arises
from an organic defect are so few as to be almost
an exception, but where those cases exist, they
must be regarded as incurable. The re-educa-
tional process used in the successful method of
curing stuttering and stammering will not replace
a defective organ of the body with a new one. It
will not cure harelip or cleft palate, nor will it
loosen the tongue of the child who has been hope-
lessly tongue-tied from birth.

A boy was brought to me some years ago by
his parents in the hope that his speech trouble
might be eradicated, but it was found upon exam-
ination that he had always been tongue-tied and
that the deformity would not permit of the
normal, natural movements of the tongue neces-
sary to proper speaking. I immediately told the
parents the unfortunate condition of their son and
frankly stated that in his condition there was no
possibility of my being able to help him.

Diseased Brain : Taking up the second class —
those who have a diseased condition of the brain

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 169

— these eases, too, are very rare. I have met but
a comparatively few. Where a lesion of the brain
has occurred, and a distinct change has thus been
brought about in the physical structure of that
organ, an attempt to bring about a cure would be
a waste of time — hopeless from the start.

The Procrastinators : The third type of incur-
able cases is that of the stammerer or stutterer
who, against all advice and experience, has per-
sisted in the belief that his trouble would be out-
grown and who has by this means allowed the
disorder to progress so far into the chronic stage
as to make treatment entirely without effect.

This type of incurable is very numerous. They
usually start in childhood with a case of simple
stuttering which, if treated then, could be eradi-
cated quickly and easily. From this stage they
usually pass into the trouble of a compound
nature, known as combined stammering and stut-
tering. Here, also, their malady would yield
readily to proper methods of treatment, but
instead of giving it the attention so badly needed,
they allow it to pass into a severe case of Spas-
modic Stammering, and from this into the most

170 STAMMEEING

chronic stage of that trouble. The malady be-
comes rooted in the muscular system. The nerv-
ous strain and continued fear tear down all
semblance of mental control and in time the suf-
ferer is in a condition that is hopeless indeed, a
condition where he is subject for the pity and
the sympathy of every one who stammers, and
yet a condition brought on purely by his own
neglect and wilfulness.

I recall the case of a father who brought his
boy of 16 to see me some years ago. At that
time, the boy represented one of the worst cases
of stammering I ever saw. He could scarcely
speak at all. He made awful contortions of the
face and body when attempting to speak. When
he succeeded in uttering sounds, these resembled
the deep bark of a dog. These sounds were
totally unintelligible, save upon rare occasions,
when he would be able to speak clearly enough
to make himself understood. I gave the boy the
most searching personal diagnosis and very care-
fully inspected his condition both mental and
physical, after which I was convinced that he
could be cured, with time and persistent work.
The father was given the result of my findings

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 171

and told of the boy's condition. He decided to
take the boy home, talk the matter over and place
him under my care the next week. Ten days
later he wrote me saying that the boy had secured
a job in a garage at $6 a week and could not
think about being cured of stammering at that
time.

Two and a half years later — the boy was near-
ing twenty — I saw him again, and even after all
my experience in meeting stammerers, could
hardly believe that stammering could bring about
such a terrible condition as this boy was in at that
time. His mental faculties were entirely shat-
tered. His concentration was gone. This poor
boy was merely a blubbering, stumbling idiot, a
sight to move the stoutest heart, a living example
of the result of carelessness and parental neglect.
Needless to say, I would not consider his treat-
ment in such a condition. There was no longer
any foundation to build on — no longer the
slightest chance for benefiting the boy in the least.

The Wilfully Disobedient Cases: Taking up
the fourth class of incurables, those who refuse to
obey instructions — I can only say that such as

172 STAMMEEING

these are not deserving of a cure. They are not
sincere, they are not wilhng to hold themselves to
the simplest program no matter how great might
be the resultant good. They spend their own
money or the money of their parents foolishly,
get no results and disgust the instructor who
spends his or her efforts in trying to bring about
a cure, against obstacles that no one can over-
come, viz. : unwilhngness to do as told. The old
saying that "You can lead a horse to water, but
you can't make him drink" applies most force-
fully to the case of the wilfully disobedient stam-
merer. You can instruct this individual in the
methods to bring about a cure, but you can't
make him follow them.

I well remember one case in point. A young
man of 20 years came to me apparently with
every desire in the world to be cured of stammer-
ing. The first day he followed instructions with
great care, seemed to take a wonderful interest
in his work and at the end of the day expressed
to me his pleasure in finding himself improved
even with one day's work. By the third day, the
novelty had worn off and his "smart-aleck" tend-
encies began to come to the surface. He was

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 173

impertinent. He was impudent. He was rude.
He failed to come to his work promptly in the
morning, was late at meals, stayed out at night
beyond the time limit set by the dormitory rules
and persisted in doing everything in an irregular
and wilfully disobedient manner.

I was not inclined to dismiss him because of
his misconduct, because it was evident that here
was a boy of more than ordinary native intelli-
gence, a fine-looking chap with untold opportu-
nities ahead of him, if he were cured of stammer-
ing. So I put up with his misdeeds for many
days, until one morning I decided that either he
must come to time or return to his home — and he
elected to take the latter course.

In looking up this boy's record later on, it was
found that he was incorrigible, that his parents
had never been successful in controlling him at
any time and that he had been expelled from
school twice.

There is no need for me to say that this boy
was afflicted with something even worse than
stammering — something that science was not able
to help — ^i. e., a lack of sense. His case was incur-
able, just as much so as if an inch of his tongue

174 STAMMERING

had been sheared off. With such stammerers as
this I have neither patience nor sympathy. They
have no respect or consideration for others and
are consequently entitled to none themselves.

The Chronic Dissipator: The fifth type of in-
curable might be called the "chronic dissipator"
and his stammering is hopelessly incurable just
as far as his habits are incurable. The person
who persists in undermining his mental and
physical being with dissipation and who, when he
knows the results of his doings, will not cease,
cannot hope to be cured of stammering. Cases
such as these I do not attempt to treat. They
are neither wanted nor accepted.

I recall the case of a man of 32, a big, stalwart
fellow, who came to me about two years ago with
a very severe case of combined stammering and
stuttering. He made his plans to place himself
under my care but before getting back, fell a vic-
tim to his inordinate appetite for drink and was
laid up for a week. His wife wrote me the cir-
cumstances, told me it had been going on for nine
years and that all efforts to eradicate the appetite
had failed. I immediately advised her that I con-

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 175

sidered his case incurable and could not accept
him for treatment. In such cases, a cure is built
upon too shallow and uncertain a foundation to
offer any hope of being permanent.

Below Normal Intelligence: There is another
incurable case which must be included if we are
to complete this list of the incurable forms of
speech impediments. That is the case of the
stammerer who is of below normal intelligence.
These cases are very rare and I do not recall but
four instances where a case has been diagnosed
as incurable on account of the lack of intelligence.
This is a direct refutation of the statement that
stammerers are naturally below normal in mental
ability. Out of more than twenty-five years' ex-
perience in meeting stanmierers by the thousands,
I can say most emphatically that stammerers as a
class are not naturally below normal intelligence
or mental power, save as their trouble may have
affected their concentration or will-power.

The Lackadaisical: The last and largest class
of incurable cases of stammering are those who
will not make the effort to be cured. These are

176 STAMMERING

the spineless, the unsure, the cowards, who are
afraid to try anything for fear it will not be suc-
cessful.

They are usually afflicted with a malady worse
than stammering or stuttering — "indecision"^ — a
malady for which science has found no remedy.
Knowing the dire results of continued stanmier-
ing, still they stammer. Reason fails to move
them to the necessary effort. Common sense
makes no appeal. Well, indeed, in such cases,
may we paraphrase the words of Dr. Russell H.
Conwell and say:

"There is nathing in the world that can prevent
you from being cured of stammering but TOTJESELP.
Neither heredity, environment or any of the obstacles super-
imposed by man can keep you from marching straight
through to a cure if you are guided by a firm, driving
determination and have health and normal intelligence."

These seven classes of incurable cases complete
the list. And the number of such cases, all taken
together, is so small as to be almost out of con-
sideration. For, out of a thousand cases of stut-
tering and stammering examined, I find but 2 per
cent, with organic defects or of an incurable na-
ture. In other words, 98 per cent, can be com-
pletely and permanently cured.

CHAPTER IV

CAN STAMMERING BE CURED BY MAIL?

IN the years past there have been attempts
from time to time to induce the stammerer to
seek a cure for his impediment in mail order
treatments. As has already been told, I was the
victim of one of these so-called "correspondence-
cures" and know something about them from per-
sonal experience.

In the first place, the sufferer usually takes up
with the mail order specialist because this man
retails his "profound" knowledge at a low rate, a
rate so low that even a single thought on the sub-
ject would convince anyone that his money was
buying a few sheets of paper but no professional
knowledge or experience.

The very best correspondence course I have
ever Icnown anything about was not as good as a
number of books on elocution that are available
in any good library. Usually these courses are
written by some charlatan who is in business as a
mail-order-man selling trinkets and stammering
cures or running a general correspondence school,

178 STAMMERING

teaching not only how to cure stammering by
correspondence but giving courses in "Hair-
Waving" and "How to Become a Detective." It
is needless for me to say that such as these are in
the business, not for the good of the stammerer
nor even for the purpose of helping him, but sim-
ply for the money that can be extracted from the
stammerer or stutterer.

The Difference: There are two main differ-
ences, however, between the books which the
stammerer may read without cost and the cor-
respondence course for which he pays out his
good money — ^many dollars of it. The corre-
spondence course has been written by a man who
knew little or nothing of the subject, and who
put out a course for stammerers only because he
knew something of the number of stammerers in
his territory and said to himself, "My, but I
ought to be able to sell them a mail-order cure."
Forthwith he sits down and writes a course — it
isn't necessary to have anything in it at all.
Often these men do not even take the trouble to
consult reliable books on the subject. They do
not profess to laiow anything about stammering
or stuttering, their cause or their cure. They

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 179

simply sit down and write — and when they have
it written, they send it to the printer, have it
printed and then split these printed sheets up into
ten, or twenty, or fifty, or a hundred lessons —
whatever their fancy may dictate, and begin to
sell them. They have no thought of the results —
results to them mean nothing save the number of
courses that can be sold — and whether or not a
single iota of good accrues to the stammerer from
this expenditure of money is one of the things
in which the correspondence school stammering
specialist is not at all interested.

The most that can be expected from the very
best mail course for the cure of stammering is
that the subscriber will receive information worth
as much as that which might be in a library book.
He receives this in installments and for privilege
of reading it piece-meal, pays from $50 to $100.

It is hopeless to try to cure stammering or stut-
tering by any method unless the instructor knows
his business. And this knowledge comes not by
chance but by long, hard study.

Mail Cures a Failure: No stammerer should
attempt to be cured by any correspondence
method. When the decision has been made to

12

180 STAMMEHING

have a speech defect removed, the sufferer should
place himself under the care of a reputable insti-
tution, the past record of which entitles it to con-
sideration. Correspondence cures are a waste of
money, a waste of time and finally leave the
stammerer with the firm-foimded belief that his
trouble is absolutely incurable, when, as a matter
of fact, he may have a comparatively simple form
of stuttering or stammering which could be
quickly eradicated by the proper institutional
treatment.

At no time should the stammerer resort to the
use of any mechanical contrivance to aid him in
speaking correctly. The cause of the trouble
as previously explained, is inco-ordination. Me-
chanical contrivances to hold the tongue in a cer-
tain position, elevate the palate or for any other
purpose may be positively harmful and should be
strictly avoided — always.

CHAPTER V

THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERT DIAGNOSIS

A DIAGNOSIS is an examination or analy-
sis to determine the identity of a disease
and to reveal its cause and characteristics. A
reputable medical man will not undertake the
treatment of any malady without having first
made a searching examination and a thorough
diagnosis of the trouble.

In the case of the stammerer or stutterer, ex-
pert diagnosis is very important and should be
undertaken only by a diagnostician who has had
previous training and experience of sufficient
duration to enable him to be classed as an expert
on the subject. No stammerer or stutterer, how-
ever, should overlook the value of such diagnosis,
for the reason that there are so many forms of
speech disorders that it is totally impossible as
well as unsafe for the sufferer himself to try to
determine the exact nature of his trouble.

I recall the case of a certain young man who
had depended upon his own knowledge to deter-
mine the identity of his speech defect and the

182 STAMMERING

nature of his trouble. When a boy, he had swal-
lowed a small program pencil with a metal tip,
injuring his vocal cords, so he said, and causing
him to become a stammerer. An examination of
his condition and a careful diagnosis of his case
revealed the fact that his vocal organs were as
normal as those of any person who had never
stammered. The diagnosis also revealed the fact
that his stammering was not originally caused by
any organic defect or any injury to the vocal
organs, but that, on the other hand, he had, in
the first place, inherited a predisposition to stam-
mer, his father and his grandfather both having
been stammerers whose trouble had never been
remedied. The diagnosis showed that the onset
of the trouble immediately after swallowing the
pencil was due chiefly to the nervous shock and
fright caused by the accident, which, in conjimc-
tion, with the inherited predisposition toward
stammering, was too much for the boy's mental
control and he immediately developed into a
stammerer. The young man had believed for
many years that his defective utterance was
totally incurable, that it was due to an organic
defect which could not be remedied. The diag-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 183

nosis quickly revealed, however, that a very dif-
ferent condition was responsible for his trouble
and as a consequence, he found himself able to be
cured where, without expert diagnosis, he had
resigned himself to a life as a stammerer.

Another case which also shows the stammerer's
inabihty to diagnose his own trouble accurately
was that of a woman who persistently refused to
allow her son to have his case diagnosed, because
of her belief that he was incurable and that the
diagnosis would be a waste of time and money.

After months of coaxing, however, he suc-
ceeded in getting her to consent and I gave him a
thorough diagnosis and report on his condition.
This mother had been imduly alarmed — the boy
was still in a curable stage and in fact completed
the necessary work in much less than the usual
time. This is but another case that shows the
loss which comes from not knowing the truth.

Written Report of Diagnosis Valuable: It is
well to get a personal diagnosis of the case where
possible, but if this cannot be done, a written his-
tory of the case, together with a statement of the
symptoms and present condition, should enable

184 STAMMERING

the expert diagnostician of speech defects to
make a thorough and reliable diagnosis of the
trouble.

This diagnosis, to be of the most value to the
stammerer or stutterer, should be made up in the
form of a written report, so that the information
may be in permanent form and so that the suf-
ferer can study his own case in all its angles.

What Diagnosis Should Show: First of all,
of course, the diagnosis should identify and label
your trouble. It should tell what form of speech
defect is revealed by the symptoms ; it should tell
the cause of the trouble; the stage it is now in;
should indicate whether or not there is any or-
ganic defect; should give information as to the
possibilities of outgrowing the trouble; and, most
important of all, should state whether or not the
disorder is in a curable stage.

When it is remembered that nearly a dozen
more or less common speech disorders can be
named, almost in one breath, and that some of
these disorders may pass through four or five suc-
cessive stages, it will be seen that an expert diag-
nosis and report is almost a necessity to the stam-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 185

merer or stutterer who would have reliable and
authoritative information about his speech dis-
order.

The stammerer or stutterer who volimtarily
remains in the dark, who is satisfied with gross
ignorance of his trouble, is surely not on the road
to freedom of speech.

The most able man cannot decide correctly
without the facts. To decide in the absence of
information is guesswork — and guesswork is a
poor method of deciding what to do — in the case
of the stammerer as in every other case.

Therefore, it behooves the stammerer to be-
come enlightened to as great an extent as pos-
sible, to banish ignorance of his trouble and
replace it with facts and sound knowledge.

CHAPTER VI

THE SECBET OF CUEING STUTTERING AND
STAMMERING

IF the reader has followed this work carefully
up to this point, he is now informed on the
causes of stuttering and stammering, on their
characteristic tendencies and their peculiarities.
We are now ready to ask, "What are the correct
methods for the cure of stuttering and stammer-
ing?" and to answer that question authoritatively.
As to the successful mode of procedure in de-
termining the proper methods for the cure of
stuttering and stammering, I know of no sug-
gestion better than that offered by Alexander
Melville Bell, who says :

"The rational, as it is experimentally the successful
method of procedure, is first to study the standard of correct
articulation (not the varieties of imperfect utterance) and
then not to go from one extreme to another, but ait every
step to compare the defective with the perfect mode of
speech and so infallibly to ascertain the amount, the kind
and the source of the error."

We have already done that: We have located the
cause of the trouble. We not only know that

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 187

stammering is caused by a lack of co-ordination
between the brain and the muscles of speech, but
we know the things which may bring about the
lack of co-ordination. Now, how to cure? Sim-
ply remove the cause. Re-establish normal co-
ordination between the brain and the muscles of
speech. Restore normal brain control over the
speech organs. Make these organs respond
freely, naturally and promptly to the brain
messages.

That soimds simple. But if it is as simple as
it sounds, why is it that so many in the past have
failed to cure stammering and stuttering? Why
have so many so-called methods of cure passed
into the discard? The answer is, they were based
on the wrong foundation. They struck at the
effects and not at the cause of the trouble. And
as a result, the methods failed.

These so-called methods have aimed at many
different effects. One method, for instance, had
as its theory that if you could cure the nervous-
ness, the stammering would magically disappear.
The unfortunate sufferer was doped with vile-
tasting bitters and nerve medicines, so-called, in
the hope that his nervous system would respond
to treatment. But the nerves could not be quieted

188 STAMMERING

and the nervous system built up until the cause of
the nervousness — which was stammering — ^was
removed.

There was a time, too, and it has not been so
long ago, when the craze was on for using sur-
gery as a cure-all for stammering. Terrible
butchery was performed in the name of surgery
— the patient's tongue sometimes being slitted or
notched, and other foolish and cruel subterfuges
improvised in an effort to cure the stammering.
Needless to say, there was no cure fovmd in such
methods. There is no chance of curing a mental
defect by slitting the tongue and the absurdities
of that "butchering period" which have now
passed away, are numbered among the mistakes
of those who committed them.

A lack of thoroughness marked the later
attempts to cure stammering. One method was
based, for instance, solely upon correct breath-
ing. There is no doubt that correct breathing is
very vital both to the stammerer and the non-
stammerer, if they are to speak fluently and well.
But breath-control does not even begin to solve
the problem of curing stammering. It is but an
element, and a small element, in the proper artic-
ulation of words. And however well this plan of

ITS CAUSE AND CX7RE 189

breath-control might have succeeded, it could
never have succeeded in really curing stuttering
and stammering.

Most of these ill-advised efforts and half-baked
methods sprang up, not as a result of sound
knowledge but rather as a result of the lack of it.
In fact, looking back at the manner in which the
stammerer was treated for stammering under
these methods, we can see now that nothing but
the most profound ignorance of the fundamental
principles imderlying the art of speaking could
have made it possible for these misguided in-
structors to pass out as science the jargon and
hodge-podge which they did try to pass off
as scientific knowledge. The absurdities pro-
pounded in the name of stammering cures were
too numerous even to enimierate in this volume.

Speech Principles Fundamental: Back of
every spoken word, whether that word be French,
English, Italian, or any other language, are the
unchangeable principles of speech. These prin-
ciples of speech are fundamental. They do not
change basically nor do they vary in the indi-
vidual. When you speak correctly, you do so as
a result of following the correct principles of

190 STAMMERING

speech. I speak correctly by the same method as
you. And when you speak incorrectly, or when
you stutter or stammer, you do so because you
have violated one or more of these fundamental
principles. Any other person who stammers or
stutters as you do, violates the same principles
and requires the same method of correction as
yourself. The severity of your case depends upon
how many of the principles of speech you violate.
A diagnosis will determine this — and therefore
what is necessary to be done to bring about per-
fect speech. The number of speech violations to
be corrected wiU also determine to a certain
extent the time required for correction.

Speech Defined: Speech, in all the diversities
of tongues and dialects, consists of but a small
number of articulated elementary soimds. These
are produced by the agency of the lungs, the
larynx, and the mouth. The Ixmgs supply air to
the larynx, which modifies the stream into whis-
per or voice ; and this air is then moulded by the
plastic oral organs into syllables which singly or
in accentual combinations constitute words.

As explained in the Chapter on Causes, all of
the physical organs which have to do with the

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 191

production of speech and all of the brain centers
whose duty it is to control the actions of these
various organs, must operate in harmony, or, in
other words, must co-ordinate, if we are to have
perfect speech. Co-ordination implies perfect
mental control of physical actions. And this in
turn means perfect obedience of the physical
organs of speech to the brain messages that are
received.

The cure of stammering and stuttering re-
quires a great deal of care based, of coxu-se, upon
the correct scientific knowledge in the first place.

In attempting to cure stammering, there has
been too much teaching by rigid rules and not
enough teaching by principles. There are very
few hard-and-fast rules that can be followed with
success by every stutterer or stammerer. No set
of rules can be laid down as a standard for every
one to follow, for no two persons stammer
exactly alike any more than two persons look
exactly ahke.

The only safe rule of all the rules is that which
says, "Cleave closely to the principles, let the
rules fall where they may." The only successful
method is that which, being first based upoii the
right principle, is followed out with intelligence

192 STAMMERING

by the stammerer and administered with wisdom
by the instructor to fit the needs and require-
ments of the individual case.

Methods Necessarily Three-Fold: The cure of
stammering and stuttering can be wrought only
by a method that is three-fold — that attacks all of
the un-normal conditions of the stammerer simul-
taneously and eradicates them in unison.

It would be of little avail, for instance, to build
up perfect breath control, and leave the stam-
merer in a mental state where he was continually
harassed by a fear of failure, by a continual self-
consciousness and irritated by a deep-seated
nervousness.

And it would be of just as little use to try to
remove that self -consciousness, fear of failure
and nervousness without removing the cause of
the stammering.

In other words, when the successful method of
curing stammering is spoken of as being three-
fold in purpose, it is meant that this method must
build up the physical being, must achieve perfect
mental equilibrium and must link up the physical
with the mental in perfect harmony.

A permanent cure can rest on no other f ounda-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 193

tion than perfect restoration to a truly normal
mental and physical condition. When this has
been accomplished and when the synchronization
of brain and speech organs has been brought
about, the muscles of speech do not hesitate in
responding to a brain message for the utterance
of a word. There is no longer any sticking, any
loose or hurried repetition. In other words, per-
fect speech now comes as a logical consequence.

Speech Specialist Should Have Stammered:
It is very important that the speech expert who
would promulgate a method for the eradication
of stammering should have, at one time or
another, stammered himself.

It is a well-known fact that the imagination
cannot conjure up an image of something that
has never been experienced. If you had been
bom blind, you would have no mental picture of
any color, no matter how much you might have
heard about it. Still your imagination might be
a most prolific one. The utmost feat of the
human imagination is to combine mental pictures
to form still other images which are impossible or
absurd or which in their entirety have not been
experienced. In other words, new combinations

194 STAMMEEING

of images are possible, but an entirely new or
basic picture is beyond the power of the imagina-
tion to create.

So, with the specialist who would cure stutter-
ing and stammering. It is impossible for the
man who has never stammered or stuttered to
know the fear that grips the sufferer when he
thinks of speaking. It is impossible for one who
has never stammered to imagine what this fear is
like or to know the feeling that accompanies it.

For that reason, it is important that the man
who attempts to eradicate speech defects should
have been afflicted himself in order that his
experience may have been acquired first-hand —
that the suffering may have been felt and all of
the conditions and situations of the stammerer
may be as familiar to him as to his student.

Valiie of Moral Influence in the Cure of Stam-
mering: In speaking of the necessity for good
health, both physical and mental, before the erad-
ication of stammering can take place, we must
not overlook a few words about one particular
type of derelict — ^the will-less or sometimes wilful
individual who persists in indulging in dissipa-
tion of every kind, the individual who, with cock-

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 195

sure attitude and haughty sneer, laughs in the
face of experience and insists that "it will not
bother him." To such as these, no hope can be
held out. Such tactics leave both body and mind
in a condition that does not permit of up-build-
ing. There is little foundation for any effort and
with the passing of each day, there is a tearing-
out of bodily and mental vigor that makes all
effort useless.

But in the average individual, physical rebuild-
ing is a process of but a few weeks. The mental
rehabilitation can usually be accomplished in an
equally short period of time and when these
things have been brought about, perfect speech
soon follows if the correct methods are applied.

13

CHAPTER VII

THE BOGUE UNIT METHOD DESCRIBED

AT the time a stammerer or stutterer first
places himself under my care and before
any attempt is made to apply the treatment, he
is given a very thorough and searching examina-
tion for the purpose of learning the exact nature
of his difficulty. It must be remembered that no
two cases of stammering or stuttering are exactly
alike and that no two cases require exactly the
same method of treatment, although the same
basic principles apply to all.

Even if the stammerer's case has been previ-
ously diagnosed by me, it is necessary to compare
and verify the symptoms as previously exhibited
with those existing at the time of his beginning
treatment, in order to learn, first of all, whether
his malady has more recently progressed into a
further and more serious stage.

The Bogue Test: If the usual entrance exam-
ination does not bring out all of the essential facts
regarding the case, the stammerer is then put

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 197

through the Bogue Test — an original system of
diagnosis which I perfected some years ago — by
means of which the peculiarities of the trouble are
brought out, the normal, the subnormal and the
abnormal condition of the disorder is gauged and
the most minute details of the trouble are dis-
closed. This Bogue Test covers the case from
every possible angle. It lays bare the exact phys-
ical, mental and nervous condition of the stam-
merer or stutterer, enables me to determine the
original cause of the trouble and to follow
its progress from the first up to the present time,
almost as easily as if the student had been under
my observation ever since he first noticed his
defect of speech.

I recall the case of a boy who came to me at
one time for a personal diagnosis of his case. I
examined him carefully, put him through a nimi-
ber of tests and diagnosed his case, which proved
to be in the second stage and of no more than
ordinary severity. He was unable to place him-
self under my care at that time but returned to
me about eight months later, apparently in no
worse condition than before. Not being satisfied
with the results of the examination, the complete
test was applied, with the result that a condition

198 STAMMEKING

of grave seriousness was discovered, marking the
most pronounced form of his trouble — a form so
far advanced as to make the case ahnost incur-
able. The situation was explained to the young
man and he was told that it would take much
longer than usual to bring about a cm"e in liis
case, although such a cm-e was yet possible. He
expressed his willingness to spend as much time
as was necessary in the cure and as a result, he
was able within some weeks' time to talk without
stuttering or stammering. The mental sluggish-
ness which marked his conversation soon disap-
peared. He became alert and eager and when he
left for home, he was a much different boy than
when he came for treatment.

This is but one of hundreds of examples show-
ing the need for expert diagnosis and for careful
analysis of the condition of the stammerer even
if a previous diagnosis has been made within a
few months.

In practically all cases of stammering, par-
ticularly those of a progressive character, the
condition is naturally changeable and common
prudence calls for caution in accepting antedated
facts as an indication of the present condition.

In every case, the examination enables me to

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 199

gauge the severity of the case so accurately that
the student's course can be outlined, designating
the exact Plan-of- Attack to be used in:

1 — Tearing out the improper methods of
speech production

2 — ^Replacing those incorrect methods with
the correct natural methods

3 — Re-establishing normal co-ordination be-
tween the brain and the muscles of
speech.

The Method at Work: When the preliminary
Examination and Tests have been completed and
the student's course outlined, the actual working
of the Bogue Unit Method then begins. This
does not involve the practice of any "ism" or
"ology," nor does it require the use of medicines,
drugs, surgery, hypnotism or the "laying-on-of-
hands," but by scientific and natural methods,
begins the first step of the work, viz. : Tearing out
the improper methods of speech production.

At every step in the application of the method,
the principles which underlie and govern perfect
articulation, serve as the foundation of the in-
struction. As has been so often stated in this

200 STAMMERING

book, these principles of speech never change.
They apply to all persons alike, and all who talk
normally apply these principles in the same man-
ner. Those who stammer viokte them, so that in
correcting defective speech it is only logical that
we should first remove the defective procedure
and then institute the correct procedure in its
place.

The Bogue Unit Method is three-fold in ac-
tion. From this it takes the name "Unit Meth-
od." The first Unit of Treatment has for its
purpose the building up of physical efficiency.
"The first requisite is to be a good animal," says
Herbert Spencer. This is certainly true of the
stammerer, for in his case, normal health is a val-
uable aid during the time of treatment. Conse-
quently, the first step is to build up the physical
organs and be sure that these are functioning
properly.

The second Unit of Treatment restores the
mental equilibrium, stabilizes the mental activi-
ties and places them imder perfect control. The
inability of the mind to control the organs of
speech has led to a condition which might be
described as a "flabbiness of the mental muscles"
which necessitates that the mental condition be

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 201

altered and improved so that the mind can once
more possess the capacity for properly control-
ling the organs of speech.

The third Unit of Treatment synchronizes
and harmonizes mental and physical actions and
re-establishes normal co-ordination between the
brain and the muscles of speech, which completes
the work necessary to bring about a cure. After
both physical and mental conditions have been
made normal, it merely remains to link up these
two properly-working forces, co-ordinate their
activities and firmly inhabitate the correct prin-
ciples of control, after which it can be said that
a complete cure is permanently effected.

Daily Record of Progress: Beginning with
the first day, a complete report in writing is made
of the progress. Each point on which the student
makes progress is noted. If proper advancement
is not made on any particular point, special effort
is put forth to bring that point up to the standard
which has been set. This makes it possible for
the instructor to give individual attention to each
student', something which is absolutely essential
in many cases. In other words, it will not do to
start the student off and let him work out his own

202 STAMMEKING

salvation. The instructor must be constantly at
hand, giving advice, correcting faulty articula-
tion and constantly aiding the stammerer in a
hundred ways to route the malady.

After having been under treatment for seven
days, the student is subjected to his first treat-
ment test. After passing this examination satis-
factorily, the student is assigned additional work
from another angle. Some students require as
much as ten days to complete the work necessary
to pass this first test — in fact, it might also be
said that this test will determine the speed with
which the student is to progress. From this time
until the completion of the course, additional tests
are given at various intervals, according to the
needs of the case,, until the Final Cure Test
proves that the malady has been eradicated.

Conscious of the Improvement: The stam-
merer is profoundly conscious of a distinct
change for the better by the end of the very first
day under treatment. In other words, there is an
immediate and noticeable improvement, not only
in his nervous condition, but also in his physical
and mental state as well.

Before the studentpasses from under the treat-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 203

ment, he is thoroughly awareof the benefits which
the work has brought about. For, after he has
met every progress test and has been examined on
every phase and every principle of speech, he
passes to a rigid Final Test. In this test, more
than ever before, he finds the results of his efforts.
He discovers that he can use his speech in any
way that he desires — ^in any ^vay that it will be
necessary for him to use it in his future life. He
finds himself able to produce any sound — labial,
dental, lingual, nasal or palatal or any combina-
tion of these sounds in any language. He finds
every word now is an easy word, articulation is
under perfect control and the forma,tion of voice
a process involving no apparent mental effort or
physical contortions.

A young woman of 20 years was placed under
my care by her mother. She stammered very
badly and at the time when her condition was at
its worst, found it almost impossible to make her-
self understood by any means. After five weeks
of careful instruction, this young woman had no
difficulty whatever in speaking, there was no
"piling up of thoughts," as she expressed her
former condition, and her articulation was excel-
lent. A few days after she returned home, she

204 STAMMERING

wrote as follows : "I have been talking ever since
I came home and have had no trouble whatever.
I just love to talk and I believe I have said more
in the last five days than in the whole last five
years."

Additional Results: The Bogue Unit Method
of Cure when earnestly followed out by the stu-
dent, does much more than eradicate the impedi-
ment of speech. It increases the weight of the
below-the-average student, stops all spasmodic or
convulsive efforts of face, arms and limbs and
increases by several inches what was formerly a
flat and poorly developed chest.

A very bad case who came to me for treatment
several years ago was a young man of 26. He not
only stuttered but stammered very badly. He
placed himself under my guidance for a period of
a little more than six weeks. At the end of that
time he found no difficulty in talking nor were
there any spasmodic movements of the facial
muscles, as before. In reporting some time later,
he said :

"When I left I tipped the scales at 20 ponnds heavier
than when I went to you. My folks are certainly pleased
to hear me talk without the straining and strangling exer-
tion I had before in trying to force my words out. Now
they flow out nice and easy."

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 205

Many children, both boys and girls, are under
developed. This may have resulted from several
causes, but it is frequently traceable to the stam-
mering or stuttering as an indirect cause. The
Bogue Unit Method takes these children in a
poor physical condition and while eradicating the
defect of speech, brings about a healthy physical
development. An Ohio wt)man reported excel-
lent results in a letter which said:

"I am glad to inform you that my son Allan since taking
the treatment in June last, has not to my knowledge, stam-
mered once, for which we are all very grateful to the Bogue
Method. I also wish to say that his physical condition is
much improved and he has increased in weight about ten
pounds."

Regardless of the age of the student, there is
an increased vitality flowing through the entire
body, the powers of endurance are greatly in-
creased and the health built up from every stand-
point. One man sent in an enthusiastic report in
these words :

"I am fine and healthy; the people down here say I don't
look like the same person. I gained 17 pounds while I was
out there. I am talking fine. My mother says I talk them
nearly to death. I talk them all to bed at night, so they put
out the light on me so I will go to bed and hush. I went
down town Saturday night and the boys were sure glad to
hear me talk without stammering.''

Even tJds physical improvement is not unusual.

206 STAMMERING

Another man reports the change brought about
in his condition as follows :

Just about two years ago I was one of the worst stam-
merers I know that ever was; it was simply awful. I could
not speak a word without the most terrible stammering you
ever heard. My parents were heartbroken over my condition,
which grew worse all the time. I did not grow and develop
like my brothers. My shoulders were stooped, my chest
sunken — in fact, I was in a terrible condition. After staying
with you for six weeks I came home and every one who knew
me when I left was simply a,stonished at the improvement,
not in my speech alone, but in my physical condition also.
Am stronger and well now and I say it is a comfort to be
able to talk like other boys."

This case is not an unusual one, however, for
it is frequently found that the stammering child
grows into a physically deficient man as a result
of his speech impediment.

Concomitant with these physical betterments
comes a changed mental attitude, whereby the
former pessimistic outlook has been changed to
an optimistic view of life. The former abnormal
timidity of the student has been replaced by a
perfect confidence; the old unreasoning fear-of-
failure is transformed into a feeling of supreme
self-reliance; and the depressed, care-worn ex-
pression which may once have marked the stam-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 207

merer's countenance has given place to that of
cheerfuhiess.

The weak and vacillating will now manifests
itself as a dominant, masterful power-of-will and
the stagnant mentahty of the stammerer has now
given place to a vigorous, forceful, creative men-
tal power. The mind-wandering or lack of ability
to concentrate is gone and in its place is an in-
tense and well controlled power-of -concentration.
In addition to this, the nervousness which marked
the every movement of the stammerer has dis-
appeared and the self -consciousness which made
life a misery is replaced by a calm self-control,
resulting in an entire self-forgetfulness, perfect
poise and a feeling of self-possession.

These benefits accrue gradually as the course
progresses, but when, upon the completion of the
course, perfect speech is finally restored, the re-
sults are fully evident and entirely permanent.
Their permanency is the crowning result of the
proper methods — ^methods which eradicate the
trouble at its source — treat and remove the cause
instead of treating the effect.

CHAPTER VIII

SOME CASES I HAVE MET

DURING the last quarter of a cenutry, I
have personally met more than 20,000
stammerers, diagnosed 90,000 eases by mail and
corresponded with more than 200,000 people who
stammer or stutter. In this time, it is only nat-
ural that I should have come in contact with al-
most every conceivable type of stammering in
practically every form.

I am going to describe a few of these cases in
this chapter, give their history and description
very briefly, follow out the course of the trouble
when unchecked and indicate the circumstances
of cure when the stammerer has placed himself
for treatment.

I shall make no attempt to discuss all types of
speech disorders nor even all of the forms of any
one type, but rather to take up those cases which
can be regarded as most common and which are
typical of the disorders of the largest number of
stammerers and stutterers. Since a whole volume

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 209

could easily be filled with descriptions of cases, it
is evident that those discussed here must be but
briefly described.

(The case numbers in the following pages refer to speeifie
cases, but not to the order of their treatment, since the
classification is a decimal system used to indicate type, dura-
tion, stage, etc.)

Case No. 65.435 — This was a boy of 8, brought
to me by his mother after he had experienced un-
told trouble in school. The boy complained of a
pain in his head when making an effort to talk or
after having spoken under the strain for some
minutes. I foimd the spasmodic contractions
accompanying his trouble to be very pronounced
for a boy so young in years and upon making the
examination, was not surprised to find his to be
a case of Combined Stammering and Stuttering.
There was no indication of Thought-Lapse, but
there was a condition that could easily have been
mistaken for it — ^viz. : a woeful lack of confidence
in his own ability to speak, which in this boy's
case was due to the fact that he had stuttered
almost since his first word and had rarely spoken
words correctly. As has been previously ex-
plained, every child learns to speak by imitation
and his confidence in his speaking-ability must be
gained by constant reassurance from some source

210 STAMMERING

that he is speaking correctly. Early in life this
boy had found that he was not speaking correctly
and at that moment began to feel the lack of con-
fidence which had been growing upon him daily.
Although in the midst of his school work, ar-
rangements were easily made to remove him from
class and place him for treatment. Notwithstand-
ing the fact that his trouble was unusually severe
for a boy of that age, seven weeks at the Institute
saw him made into a new boy, his confidence
regained, his speech under perfect control and
his physical condition greatly improved. He
returned to school, where his unusual proficiency
enlisted the aid and co-operation of his teachers
to such an extent that he was able to finish the
semester with his class.

Case No. 7.232 — This was another boy of early
school age, whose case is described here because
of the contrast of the one just mentioned. The
present case was that of a boy soon to be 10 years
old. He had stammered, not since his first word,
but only since he had been allowed to play with
two children, twins, who lived in the neighbor-
hood, and both of whom had stuttered since their
first attempts to speak. While I never examined

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 211

the twins, it seems from what I learned of them,
that the predisposition to stammer was an inher-
ited one, both the father and grandfather having
been inveterate stammerers. Be that as it may,
their defective enunciation, practiced in the pres-
ence of the boy whose case I am describing,
caused the boy himself to acquire a habit of im-
perfect enimciation which took the form of simple
stuttering and which all the home efforts of his
mother and father had failed to eradicate. At
the time he was brought to me, I gave him the
usual examination, traced his trouble back to its
original cause — Unconscious Imitation diag-
nosed his case as one of Simple Stuttering and
recommended the procedure to be followed. This
boy left my care after three weeks and experi-
enced no further difficulty to this day, although
he is now 24 years old and engaged in work that
necessitates his making impromptu speeches
almost every day. Here was a case of Simple
Stuttering, taken at the right time, which yielded
almost magically to the treatment, but had it been
allowed to run on, would have progressed into the
Advanced Stage of Stuttering and later, in all
probability, into an extremely severe case of
Combined Stammering and Stuttering.

14

212 STAMMERING

Case No. 986.623 — This was the case of a
Polish boy who found it almost impossible to
begin a word or a sentence. In describing his
case to me, he finally managed to say, "Before I
utter a word it takes me a long time and after I
utter the word, I become red in the face and so
excited that I don't know where I am, or what
I am doing I" I found this boy to be extremely
high-strung and of a nervous temperament, easily
excited. He was of an emotional type, was more-
than-ordinarily sensitive about his trouble and
brooded over it constantly, having long fits of
deep melancholia that were a constant source of
worry to his parents. He was furthermore at a
critical age, from the standpoint of his speech
development, just approaching 16. Although
naturally of an agreeable disposition, his trouble
had made him irritable and often sullen. He
wore an air of dejection almost constantly. It
was evident to me immediately upon examination
that his trouble had had a grave effect upon his
mind and that it would in time (and not so long
a time, either) have a deep and permanent effect
that no amount of effort could eradicate.

It would be naturally expected that his symp-
toms would indicate Thought-Stammering, but

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 213

this is not true. Instead I found his to be a bad
case of Spasmodic Stammering, in which the con-
vulsive action took place immediately upon an
effort to speak and which resulted, therefore, in
the inability to express a sound — the "sticking"
tendencj'^ so common to stammering and particu-
larly to this type.

While the worry over his stammering had left
him in a mental state that made him impotent so
far as normal mental accomplishments were con-
cerned, still the removal of his stammering by the
eradication of the cause would, I felt, entirely
relieve the condition of mental flurry and stop the
nervousness.

The case was so urgent that the boy's parents
decided to place him for treatment immediately.
The results were so gratifying as to be almost
unbelievable. By the end of the first day's work,
the boy's whole mental attitude was changed.
His outlook on life was different. He felt the
thrill of conquering his difficulty and before
many days, he was working like a Trojan to
make his cure complete and permanent. At my
suggestion, he remained with me for seven weeks,
at the end of which time he went back East,
entirely changed in every particular. He was

214 STAMMERING

smiling now, where before he seemed to have for-
gotten how to smile. He was full of life, enthu-
siasm and ambition — ^no one who had seen him the
day he first came here, could reahze that this was
the same boy that entered a few weeks before
with the desire-to-live almost extinct. There are
hundreds of cases not far different from this — I
have cited the case of this Polish boy to show
what a complete transformation is made in the
mental state by a few weeks' work along the right
lines.

Case No, 87.522 — Here was a case of a type
that is very, very common. It was that of a
girl, 17 years of age, from a good family, well-
educated and having all the marks of careftd
training in a home of refinement. The most
marked characteristic of her case was the tend-
ency to recur. In other words, she was an Inter-
mittent Stammerer, who had believed (as had her
parents) that the tendency to get better was an
indication that she would soon outgrow the
trouble. "If Marie still stammers by the time
she is 18 — " this had come to be almost a house-
hold word, for if she stammered at that time, it
was the intention of her parents (so they said)

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 215

to have the girl placed under treatment. As was
to be expected, she continued to stammer and
continued to get steadily worse, although the
tendency to be better and worse by turns was
maintained throughout the years. The periods
of improvement were eagerly seized by her
parents, year after year, as indications of out-
growing, while the periods of relapse were seldom
spoken of and usually ignored. It was another
case of the old saying that: "We like to think
that the thing will happen which we want to
happen," and since they wanted the daughter to
outgrow her trouble, they insisted in believing,
despite their own unexpressed fears, that the
daughter would "eventually get over itl"

She did not get over it, however, and the criti-
cal age of 16 brought on a condition so severe that
her parents became alarmed about her and sought
advice as to what should be done.

An examination of her case brought out the
fact that she had probably inherited a predispo-
sition to stammer, but that the immediate cause
of the trouble had been fright, caused by a nurse
who had tried to discipline the girl when small,
by telling her that the "bogey-man" would get
her if she didn't do certain things as told. This

216 STAMMERING

disciplining by means of fear is never a safe pro-
cedure and in this case had been carried to ex-
tremes on many occasions, finally resulting in the
child becoming a stammerer.

She had a case of Genuine S'tammering in its
second stage and, according to her own state-
ment at the time the examination was made, had
become much worse in the last two years. At age
15 it seems that everyone felt secure in the belief
that her trouble would pass away, but at age 17,
the condition became critical, the disorder having
previously passed into the second stage.

Two and a half weeks worked a wonderful im-
provement in the girl's condition, at the end of
which time she was compelled to return to her
home on account of a death in the family. She
remained at home for almost a month, after which
she returned to me to complete the cure. Even
under such an unusual and unfavorable circum-
stance as this, she remained with me the last
time only four weeks, and has, according to her
report, never stammered since, nor has she been
oppressed by the overpowering sense of fear that
formerly seized her when she thought of trying to
talk.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 217

Case No. 84.563 — This case first came to my
attention over ten years ago, when I was called
upon to make a diagnosis. This showed the
trouble to be a case of Combined Stammering and
Stuttering, originally caused, it seemed, from
having associated with an old man who was
janitor in a wood- working plant belonging to the
father of the boy whose case I am describing.
The janitor had stammered ever since anyone
about the place had known him and probably all
of his life. In his early days, with his youth to
carry him on, he had tried to hold down several
jobs of consequence, but with varying success,
dropping down the ladder rung by rung imtil
he reached the place of janitor. The boy in
question, having associated with the old man,
early acquired the habit of mocking his defective
speech, with the result that he himself soon began
to stutter, which later turned into a combined
form of disorder known as Combined Stammer-
ing and Stuttering.

He came to me at the time he was 28, having
found it necessary to go to work on his oAvn
account, upon the failure of his father's business.
I explained to him that his was a case of Com-
bined Stammering and Stuttering, outlined to

218 STAMMERING

him the probable course of his trouble and what
he might reasonably expect if he allowed it to
continue. Having been married only a short
time and being rather reluctant to leave home
for the length of time necessary to take the
course, he decided to postpone treatment until
some later date. I heard nothing more from him
for almost three years, when he walked in one
day, looking hke a shadow of his former self.
There were dark rings around his eyes, his gaze
was shifty and I could hardly believe that this was
the young fellow who had seen me three years
ago. Nevertheless it was the same man, with a
story that pointed out the danger of postpone-
ment. His trouble had become steadily worse, he
said, until it had ruined his control over himself.
He had become nervous, irritable and cross, with-
out meaning to be so, had lost one good position
after another and finally, as a climax to a long
string of misfortunes, his wife had left him.
declaring that she would not put up with him in
such a condition.

A second examination revealed the fact that
his stammering had progressed so rapidly since
he had last talked with me, that it was now peril-
ously near the stage known as Thought Lapse.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 219

His eontrol was not entirely shattered, however,
and he was accepted for treatment. It was some-
thing over two months before he was back in
shape again, but those two months did a wonder-
ful thing for him, for it put him in first-class
physical condition, removed aU traces of his
impediment and restored the mental equilibrium
which had been so long endangered. Later, as a
result of his restoration to perfect speech, his
family differences were adjusted, and at the last
reports, he was making splendid headway in a
business of his own. Such is the power of stam-
mering to destroy — even home and happiness
itself — ^and such the power of perfect speech to
build up again.

Case No. 4^66.722 — This was the case of a man
bom in Ireland, who came to this country as a
boy, and the original cause of whose trouble was
a blow over the head in a street fight soon after
landing in America.

When he came to me, he was 52 years of age
and not only had one of the most severe cases of
Spasmodic Stammering I have ever seen, but
was in the first stages of Thought Lapse. He
was practically speechless aU of the time and his

220 STAMMERING

trouble instead of manifesting an Intermittent
Tendency as it had formerly done, was now con-
stant, indicating that he was in the chronic stage
of his difficulty. Aside from his Spasmodic
Stammering, he seemed unable to think of the
things which he wished to say. In other words,
his trouble had been affecting him so long that he
had lost the power to recall and control the men-
tal images necessary to the formation of words.
I not only gave him the usual examination but
applied the special Bogue test, both of which con-
vinced me that his case was far into the incurable
stage. There was little or nothing I could do for
him at that late date and so I told him. He acted
as if dazed for a few moments, and when the full
force of the truth dawned upon him, it was as if
a cord had snapped and broken. Hope was gone.
He was an incurable — and knew it now, only too
well. And as he turned and left me, I knew from
the droop of the shoulders and the hang of the
head, that life meant but little to him now. He
was merely waiting — waiting for the last page
to be written and his book of despair to be closed.

Case No. 34.444 — This young woman was
very talented, had a beautiful singing voice and

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 221

could not understand why she was unable to
speak fluently when she could sing so well. The
cause of her trouble was distinctly mental and
did not lie in any defective formation of the vocal
organs but rather in a lack of co-ordination
between the brain and the muscles of speech. In
her case, the speech disorder had not materially
affected her health, although she admitted it had
impaired her power of will and her ability to con-
centrate. Six weeks put her in good condition
and gave her the opportunity to use her beautiful
voice to excellent advantage in speaking as well
as in singing — much to her satisfaction.

Case No. 667.788 — This man came to me for
assistance and relief from a severe case of Com-
bined Stammering and Stuttering. He shook
Kke a leaf when he talked, was very nervous, and
could hardly sit still. His speech was marked by
loose and hurried repetitions of syllables and
words, alternating with a slow and seemingly
dazed repetition of words, as though he did not
laiow what he was saying.

In a few moments, I learned that he was a
habitual alcoholic, that he was acquainted with
the Delirium Tremens and that he frequently

222 STAMMEKING

went upon sprees lasting a week, which left him
a physical wreck. He had no backbone, there
was no foundation to buUd on and his case was
declined as incurable, not altogether from the
condition of his speech, but because it is useless
and hopeless to attempt treatment of the stam-
merer who is also a chronic dissipator.

Case No. 34.343 — This was the case of a young
man who came to me at the age of 17. He was
one of the type that "seldom stammer." He
explained this to me and told me that many of his
friends were not aware of the fact that he stam-
mered.

I gave him an examination and found his
trouble to be a case of Combined Stammering and
Stuttering in the second stage. He was of the
Intermittent Type and at intervals his trouble
became very bad, at which times he made it a
point not to go out among his friends — one of
the reasons which made it possible for him
to say that his friends did not know of his speech
trouble.

This young man came to me hoping that I
would tell him that his trouble was not severe and
that he would outgrow it in a few years. I was

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 223

able to tell him that at the time his case was not
an extremely bad one, but I knew that instead of
being outgrown it would become ingrown, and I
so told him.

But he decided to postpone action until some
later date, feeling sure, despite what I had told
him, that he would outgrow his stammering.

Four and a half years later, he came back.
This time he did not say that his friends knew
nothing of his trouble. He was in bad condition,
his "seldom stammering," as he had called it, was
chronic now and the painful expression on his
face when he tried to talk was ample proof of the
condition in which he had allowed himself to- get.
His trouble had passed into Genuine Stammer-
ing and was of a very severe nature. There was
no thought of postponement in his mind at this
time and he placed himself for treatment imme-
diately. Eight weeks' time saw his work com-
pleted, with excellent results. His fear was gone,
his confidence renewed and his health greatly im-
proved, in addition to being able to talk fluently.

Case No. 66.788 — Here was the case of a man
of 30, a preacher, who found no difficulty in
preaching to his congregation, from the pulpit,

224 STAMMERING

but whose trouble immediately got the best of
him the moment he went down into the church
and attempted to carry on a conversation indi-
vidually. This became so embarrassing to him
that he finally gave up the idea of passing
through his congregation, but satisfied himself
with standing at the door and greeting them as
they passed out. This, too, he was later com-
pelled to give up on account of his speech,
although during none of this time did he have the
slightest trouble in delivering his sermons.

His was a case of Genuine Stammering. The
mental control when he was in the pulpit was
almost normal. Talking to individuals, this con-
trol was quickly shattered. He placed himself
for treatment after having secured a brother-
pastor to fill his place for two months. He was
a good student, obedient to instruction, concen-
trating on his work with a creditable energy. As
a result, in five weeks' time, he found himself able
to talk to anybody under any condition without
the slightest sticking or fear. He could talk
over the telephone and was master of himself
under the cross-fire of conversation which in his
previous state had bothered him so seriously.

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 225

Case No. 48.336 — This is a case that repre-
sents a very common type of Combined Stam-
mering and Stuttering, and a type that is not so
quickly cured as might be imagined. This was a
yoimg man of 18, who not only stammered but
stuttered. His speech disorder, however, was
further comphcated by a bad habit of prefixing
a totally foreign word or sound to the word or
sound which he found it difficult to pronounce.
"B" was one of his hard sounds and in speaking
the sentence: "We expect to leave Baltimore,"
he would say: "We expect to leave ah-ah-ah-
Baltimore."

The fear of failure which caused him to acquire
this habit of speaking, led his friends often to
think that his mind wandered, although as a mat-
ter of fact, he was a very bright young fellow,
without a single indication of Thought Lapse.

I diagnosed his case as Combined Stammering
and Stuttering, and explained to him that he
represented a type of stammering that might be
called the "Prefix Stammerer" because of their
habit of prefixing every hard sound with an easy
word or an easy sound, even to the extent of
losing the sense of the sentence — so great is the
"Prefix Stammerer's" fear of failure.

226 STAMMERING

He placed himself for treatment, and although
his trouble was complicated by this prefixing
habit, seven weeks put him in good shape. He
forgot his fear of failure, found every word an
easy word and every sound an easy sound. He
learned to talk fluently again and returned to his
home, both physically and mentally improved.

Case No. 98.656 — This was the case of a rather
arrogant young man from a good family, who
was too proud to admit that he was a stammerer.
Rather it should be said, he was too foolish to
admit it. He was well-educated and with the
store of words at his command, succeeded for
some years in concealing the fact that he stam-
mered. This he accomplished by the substitu-
tion of words. That is, words beginning with
those letters that he could not utter were not
used. If his sentence included such a word, he
quickly substituted another word of somewhat
similar meaning, but beginning with a letter that
he could pronounce correctly. This substitution
of words was so well done that for some time it
was scarcely noticeable to the average listener.
Often he found himself incorrectly understood,
because of his inability to use the right word in

ITS CAUSE ANB CUBE 227

the right place, but nevertheless he was successful
in concealing his speech defect from many of his
friends.

This case is of a type known as the "Synonym
Stammerer" because synonyms are used to avoid
stammering. The mental strain of trying always
to substitute easy words for hard ones, was very
great, however, and after a few years' practice,
the strain began to tell on the young man. It
affected his health and made him nervous and
irritable.

It was at this time that he came to me. Gen-
uine Stammering was his trouble, and so it was
diagnosed. He refused to admit that he had a
severe case, although the truth of the matter was,
he did stammer badly and the mental power which
had sustained him in his attempts to speak, was
being steadily weakened by what we might term
misuse.

He placed himself for treatment, although in
a frame of mind that did not augur well for his
success, but by the end of the third day his mental
attitude had entirely changed, he came to realize
the immense difference between being able to
speak fluently and naturally and being compelled
to substitute synonyms. From that day forth he

15

228 STAMMERING

was one of my best students. His education
stood him in good stead, his enthusiasm was so
spontaneous as to be contagious and at the end
of four and a half weeks, he departed, as thor-
oughly changed for the better as anyone could
wish. The arrogance was gone. In its place was
something better — a sure-footed confidence in his
ability to talk — and this was a confidence based
on real abiUty — ^not on bluff. He was no longer
nervous and irritable — and in fact, before leav-
ing, he had won his way into the hearts of his as-
sociates to the extent that all were sorry when he
left and felt that they had made the acquaintance
of a young man of remarkable power.

Five years later, I met him in New York, quite
by accident. He was in charge of his father's
business, had made a wonderful success of his
work and was universally respected and admired
by those who knew him. Even to this yoimg
man, who to many would have seemed to have all
that he could desire, freedom of speech opened
new and greater opportunities.

If I had the space to do so within the covers
of one volume, I would gladly give many more
cases, with description and diagnosis as well as
results of treatment. Specific cases are always

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 229

interesting, illuminating and conclusive. They
show theory in practice and opinions backed by
actual results.

But lack of space makes it impossible to give
additional cases here. Those which have been
given are typical cases — ^not the imusual ones.
The out-of-the-ordinary cases have been avoided
and the common types dwelt upon with the idea
of "giving the greatest good to the greatest
number."

Every reader of this volume who lives today
under the constant handicap of a speech disorder,
may well take new hope from the thought that
"What man hath done, man can do" — again!

PART IV
SETTING THE TONGUE FREE

CHAPTER I

THE JOY OF PERFECT SPEECH

IF you stammer — ^if you are afraid to try to
talk for fear you will fail — if you are nervous,
self-conscious and retiring because of your stam-
mering — ^then you don't realize the Magic Power
of Perfect Speech. You don't realize what per-
fect speech will mean to you. Listen to this —
from a young woman who starmnered — who was
cured — and who knows :

"The most wonderful thing has happened to me. What
do you think it is? I have been cured of stammering. You
have no idea how different it is to be able to talk. I just
feel like I could fly I'm so happy. Just think, I can talk
I'm so glad, so glad, so glad, it's over. I just feel like
jumping up and down and shouting and telling everybody
about it. I never was so happy in my life — I never was so
glad about anything as I am about this."

That is the way she feels after being entirely
freed from her stammering — after learning to

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 231

talk freely and fluently without difiiculty, hesita-
tion or fear-of-failure.

And here are the words of a young man who
has just found his speech:

"The Bogue Cure is marvelous. It is just like making a

blind man see. It is remarkable. The sensation of being

able to talk after stammering for twenty-five years is won-
derful."

And another young woman — this time from Mis-
souri:

"That BIX weeks was the beginning of life for me. All my
life I have had a dread of trying to speak which miade Ufe
most unpleasant. I do not have it now — I love to meet
people."

The joy of perfect speech —

The wonderful exhilaration of being able to say
anything you want to say whenever you want to
say, to whomsoever you desire to speak.

"I can talk" — that sums it all up. With that
assurance comes the feeling of the innocent man
freed from a long term in prison — ^the sense of
completeness and wholeness and ability, the feel-
ing that you are equal to others in every way,
that you can compete with them and talk with
them and associate with them on a plane of
equality.

Such is the Joy of Perfect Speech!!

232 STAMMERING

To know that the haunting fear is gone — ^that
the shackles have fallen away, the chains are
broken.

To know that you are free — delivered from
bondage.

What a feeling — what a sensation —

Living itself is worth-while. Life means more.
The sun shines brighter, the grass is greener, the
flowers are more beautiful while friends and rela-
tives seem closer, kinder and dearer than ever
before.

The Joy of Perfect Speech!

No words can paint the picture, no tongue
describe the lofty feeling of elation which crowns
the man or woman or boy or girl who has stam-
mered and has been set free.

CHAPTER II

HOW TO DETERMINE WHETHER YOU
CAN BE CURED

YOU can either be cured of your trouble — or
you cannot. If you can, why should you go
about hesitating, stumbling, sticking, stammering
and stuttering?

Why should you deny yourself the privileges
of society, the advantages of opportunity, the
fruits of success — ^if you can be completely and
permanently cured of the trouble which handi-
caps you and holds you back?

Why should you live a half life as a stam-
merer, if you can be cured and live the complete,
joyous, happy, overflowing life?

Why should you be content with failure or
half -success if the triumphant power to accom-
plish, the masterful will to succeed is right within
your grasp?

Why should you continue to stammer if you
can be cured?

The answer is, you should not.

The first step, therefore, is to determine defi-

234 STAMMERING

nitely and accurately whether you are in a cur-
able stage of your trouble and whether you can
be completely and permanently cured.

These things you caimot determine for your-
self. You have no facilities for determining the
facts. You lack the scientific knowledge upon
which such conclusions must be based. You can-
not diagnose your case of stammering any more
than you could accurately diagnose a highly com-
plex nervous disease. In order, therefore, that
the most important of all questions, viz. : "Can
I be Cured?" may be correctly and authorita-
tively answered, I am willing to diagnose your
case and give you a typewritten report of your
condition, telling you whether or not you are still
in a curable stage.

It goes without saying that this diagnosis must
be based upon a description of the case in ques-
tion. This description must be accurate and re-
liable as well as thorough. In order to insure
this, I furnish with each book a Diagnosis Blank,
which when properly filled out, gives me the in-
formation necessary to determine the durabiUty
of the case, as well as to furnish much other
valuable information about the individual's con-
dition.

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 235

In no case, will I undertake to pass on the cur-
ability of the stammerer without a diagnosis first
being made. You want the opinion which I give
you to be authoritative and dependable — a report
in which you can place your entire confidence. I
cannot give such a report by merely hazarding a
guess as to your condition. I must base my re-
port on the actual facts as they exist. I must
make a careful study of your symptoms, deter-
mine what your peculiar combination of symp-
toms indicates, find out the nature of your
trouble, determine its severity.

When you have returned the blank — and when
I have furnished you with the diagnosis of your
case, you can depend upon it to be accurate,
authoritative, definite and positive. It will give
you the plain facts about your trouble — be those
facts good or bad.

CHAPTER III

THE BOGUE GUARANTEE AND
WHAT IT MEANS

NO matter what caused your stammering, no
matter how old you are, how long you have
stammered, how many times you have tried to be
cured — ^no matter what you think about your case
or whether you believe it to be curable — if I have
diagnosed your trouble and pronounced it cur-
able, then I can cure YOU.

By the application of the Bogue Unit Method,
I can eradicate the cause of your trouble at its
very source, and re-establish normal co-ordina-
tion between your brain and the muscles of
speech, removing every trace of that "mental
expectancy" which you call "fear-of-failure."

I can show you how to place your articulation
under perfect control, how to make the formation
of words an easy process involving no apparent
mental effort or noticeable physical exertion.

I can teach you how to produce any sound or
combination of sounds, how to make every word
an easy word and every sound an easy sound.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 237

I can show you how to talk without stammer-
ing — ^how to talk just as freely and fluently as
any normal person who has never stammered.

I not only claim to be able to do this for you,
I back it up with a past record of success in treat-
ing hundreds of cases similar to your own. Like
cures hke. What has cured others like you, will
cure YOU. But I don't ask you to risk a single
penny upon even that evidence and proof. The
moment you enroll in the Bogue Institute, I will
issue to you and place in your hands, a written
Guarantee Certificate, over my own signature,
binding me to cure you of stammering or refund
every cent of the money which you have paid me
for tuition fee, and asking you only to follow the
easy instructions given under the Bogue Unit
Method.

You are to he the sole judge as to whether or
not you follow instructions.

I will leave it entirely to you to decide. All I
ask of you is fuU opportunity to do my best for
you and absolute honesty, such as you expect and
will receive from me.

I want to be absolutely fair with you — I want
to cure you as I have cured myself and hundreds
of other stammerers. I do not want a dollar of

238 STAMMERING

your money unless I have given you a dollar's
worth of benefit in return. I would not keep a
penny of the money that you might have paid me
for cure of your stammering unless I had actually
cured you, provided, of course, that you had fol-
lowed the instructions which anybody of ordinary
inteUigence over eight years of age can easily
follow.

I have no fear of your dealing dishonestly with
me. I know enough about human nature to know
that all you want is to be cured — and you under-
stand that to be cured you must co-operate with
me to that end. I can cure your stammering only
with your co-operation — just as a music teacher
can make a pianist of you only with your co-oper-
ative and sincere effort. Therefore, I ask only
that you follow my instructions carefully and
faithfully — and I guarantee to bestow upon you
the same gift of Perfect Speech that I have be-
stowed upon hundreds of now-happy men and
women — and I put that guarantee in writing
over my personal signatiire.

CHAPTER IV

THE CUKE IS PERMANENT

NO one who stammers should put any faith
in a cure for his trouble unless the results
are known to be permanent. A temporary cure
is no cure at all and should be avoided, for it is
merely a means of wasting money.

The Bogue Unit Method brings about not only
a complete but a permanent cure. The secret of
its success as far as permanency is concerned, lies
in the fact that the basic cause of the trouble is
removed at its very source, the wrong methods
rooted out and the correct methods installed in
their place.

Once this process is completed and the ciu-e
effected, the cure is permanently insured, because
its very cause is gone. You cannot stammer
without a cause — everyone understands that.

The proof of the permanency of the cure is
attested by the many letters from those who
were here ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. A
woman cured at the Institute ten years ago
writes :

240 STAMMERING

"At 14 I was a very bad stammerer. I then attended the
Bogue Institute, where I was completely cured in a few
weeks. I then secured a position as saleslady in one of our
leading stores where I have been called upon to handle as
many as one hundred sales in a single day. I have never
stammered onee. My cure has been absolutely perfect for
the past ten years. It was certainly a lucky day that I
walked into Mr. Bogue's office the first time."

Another excellent proof of the permanency of
the cure, is the subjection of the cured student to
tremendous mental and nervous strain. Many of
our former students were in the Great War,
numbers of them right up in the front line where
the fighting was stiffest and where the nervous
and mental strain was terrific. Even under this
test (which was enough to make a normal person
become a stammerer — and many of them did)
the results of the Bogue Unit Method held them
to normal speech. One young man writes :

"I completely regained my speech at the Bogue Institute
in 1915. I enlisted in the army and was sent overseas in the
spring of '18, and went through some of the hardest fighting
the 42nd Division was in, that being the Division I was
transferred to, and am happy to say the speech trouble has
never come back on me. I was wounded by a fragment of
high explosive shell. One hit me under the right arm, frac-
turing two ribs. Another struck my shoulder and a piece
ranged downward into my right lung, which now remains
there. I developed tuberculosis in November, in all prob-
ability from exposure as much as the wound. I was evacu-

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 241

ated to the U. S. early last winter and sent to this place,
where I am rapidly regaining my health and expeet to be
discharged about September 1st.

"With all the hard experience I went through, stammer-
ing did not come back to me. I have never regretted the
time I spent with your Institute, and I have only the highest
words of praise for the work being done in the Bogue Insti-
tute."

Another severe test of a cure of stammering is an
illness such as may have brought the trouble on
in the first place. If the stammerer, for instance,
can undergo an attack of influenza or pneumonia
and come out of it without diflSculty, it proves
beyond all question of a doubt that the cure is
permanent.

For that reason, I wish to quote the letter of
an Illinois boy who says :

"I am getting along fine with my speech. I am sure I will
never stammer again. I was sick the week after Christmas
with pneumonia but it did not bother me a bit."

Another young man says :

"It is now nearly six months since I left the Institute and
in that time I have not stammered a word. What do you
think about that? It surely is fine. But you know that. I
was in Chicago last week and visited friends and saw a doe-
tor friend of mine who did not know that I had been away,
so he just stood there and looked at me, and said, 'You are
talking fine. How did you learn thatf

"I' told him and then talked to him for four hours and he
said it was the best thing that had ever happened to me."

242 STAMMERING

Another letter, this time from Honolulu and
from a man who attended the Institute a nimiber
of years ago, says :

"Just to let you know that I am still alive and enjoying
life as I never have before. I have forgotten that I ever
stammered. Sincere thanks to you."

This young man is now an engineer in the em-
ploy of the United Shipping Board.

These letters give the answer better than I
can — ^better than any scientist can — because they
tell the real truth taken from the experience of
those who have tried and know —

First — That stammering can be cured by the
Bogue Unit Method!

Second — That the cure is a permanent cure !

CHAPTER V

A PKICELESS GIFT — AN EVERLASTING
INVESTMENT

THERE is no gift that can take the place of
perfect speech. It is beyond price — and the
person who talks after stammering would give all
his possessions to keep from going back again to
stammering.

But Freedom-of- Speech is more than a price-
less gift — it is a wonderful investment. Should
you ask: "Does it pay to be cured of stammer-
ing?" the answer could be nothing but "Yes" —
and there is evidence aplenty to prove it.

One young man wTites :

"I have never enjoyed life as I have since I left the Insti-
tute, both in a business and social way. I am to get a 25%
increase in my salary the first of the month, which is at least
partially due to my wonderful perfection of speech."

Does it pay — ? Does a 25 per cent, increase in
salary pay? Here is the case of a young woman
who was about to lose her position because of her
imperfection in speech — yet when she returned

16

244 STAMMERING

home after being cured at the Institute, she
wrote :

"I was very much surprised when I went down to the office
yesterday to find that I was going to get my place back

again. This evening, Mr. told me that I was to get

a 33%% raise at the end of next week, so my stay with you
has already begun to pay dividends."

Freedom-from-Stammering pays — in dollars and
cents. On a cold business basis, it is one of the
best investments to be made. One man who at-
tended here a few years ago was a fireman in a
large factory, stoking boilers all day long. To-
day he is salesman — and the head salesman at
that — for the same firm — he makes as much as
the President of the firm. He works on com-
mission — and he knows how to talk so as to sell.

Another man was section foreman when he
took his course at the Bogue Institute. Today
he is manager of one of a great chain of big retail
stores and makes more in one day than he used to
make in two weeks.

Another case is that of a young man from New
York State, who gave up his position to come to
the Bogue Institute and be free from stammer-
ing. Six weeks later he went home. Like the
other yoimg man mentioned above, he met with

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 245

a success-surprise — ^he was re-employed by his old
employers — and he, too, was given a 25 per cent,
increase in salary.

So, you see, freedom from stammering pays —
pays splendidly and continuously for all the rest
of your life. It pays in satisfaction, in content-
ment, in happiness and ability to associate with
others on a plane of speech-equality.

It pays in better salaries and bigger earning
power — ^in opportunities opened and chances
made possible to you that are closed to the one
who stammers.

The world's successful men and women do not
stammer. The happy, contented people do not
stammer. The money-makers do not stumble and
stick and stutter when they talk.

To be successful you must know how to talk.
If you stammer today, make your plans to get
out from under the handicap — remember that it
will pay you and pay you well.

CHAPTER VI

THE HOME OF PEKFECT SPEECH

THE BoGUE Institute of Indianapolis is
truly the home of perfect speech. For in no
other place can be found the things that are found
here. Nowhere else is there that silent sympathy
with the moods of the one who stammers. No-
where else is there that home-like atmosphere,
that all-prevading spirit of helpfulness and cheer-
fulness and good-will.

No matter how discouraged the stammerer
may be, no matter how tired or nervous or self-
conscious — no matter how shy or shrinking from
the gaze of others — no matter how timid or fiUed-
with-fear the mind, the attitude begins to change
within an hour after his arrival.

For this is the home of perfect speech. Suc-
cess is in the air. Every step I take counteracts
the tendency to fear and worry and strain. I
know what the stammerer needs. I know the
things that need to be done to quiet the hyper-
nervous case. I know what to do to banish that
intense self -consciousness and make the student

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 247

self-forgetful. These things have been learned
by experience. And these gained-by-experiehee
methods start the student in the right way from
the very first hour.

Pupils Are Met at the Train: We are glad
to meet pupils at the Union Station, where all
trains over steam roads arrive, if the student
informs us beforehand (either by letter or tele-
gram) the road over which he is coming and
the time he will arrive in this city. There is no
charge for this, it being merely a part of the
courtesy extended to students who are unfamiliar
with the location of the Institute. A small bow
of blue ribbon should be worn as a means of
identification.

When You Arrive: If you have not written
or telegraphed us to meet you at the railway sta-
tion, as soon as you arrive go to the telephone
booth and call the Bogue Institute and a repre-
sentative of the institute will be sent for you
promptly.

Your Baggage: The transfer of baggage from
the station to the Institute will be attended to by

248 STAMMERING

our office. The Baggage Transfer makes reg-
ular trips to the Institute for the purpose of
looking after the baggage of new students as well
as those who have completed the course and are
leaving for home.

Entrance Requirements: It is necessary that
every student entering the Institute be of normal
intelligence and at least eight years of age.
Every student must also be of good moral char-
acter and must be able to speak the English
language sufficiently well to take the instruction.
When a stammerer has been cured in one lan-
guage, however, he is cured in all languages.
Rich and poor are here treated with equal kind-
ness, courtesy and respect. We believe in those
who are here to be cured, regardless of their
station in life, and we believe in helping them
accomplish that purpose in as short a time as is
consistent with the results which they desire.

Grounds and Buildings: The Institute Build-
ing and Dormitory stand in a large lot, ideally
located, in a desirable residential neighborhood
away from the dirt, dust, noise and clamor of the
city and yet not so far out as to be in the least
removed from the city's activities.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 249

Board and Room for Students: The Institute
maintains its own Dormitory and Boarding De-
partment under the direct and immediate super-
vision of the Institute authorities. To the right
of the Main Dormitory Building as you enter
will be found the Dormitory for girls and women,
while on the left are located the General Offices
and the Dormitory for boys and men. Every
facility has been provided for the comfort and
happiness of our pupils while at the Institute.
Room, board, heat, light, hot and cold baths and
all other comforts and conveniences are provided.

Sleeping Rooms: The pupils' sleeping rooms
and apartments are large, well-lighted, and well-
ventilated. They are comfortable both summer
and winter, ample facilities being provided to heat
the entire building comfortably at all times.

All of the sleeping rooms as well as the entire
Dormitory and class-room are lighted with elec-
tricity. Each room contains furnishings neces-
sary to make the room comfortable and home-like.
Bath and face towels are furnished without extra
cost, as is all necessary bedding and linen. Com-
modious and spacious bathrooms, with running

250 STAMMEEING

water, and modern equipment are furnished for
the exclusive use of pupils.

Dining Boom: Two large, airy and well-
ventilated dining rooms are located in the Main
Dormitory Building. Here are served all meals,
made up m the most appetizing manner — ^whole-
some menus planned for the special needs of the
type of students who come here. There is no
dieting, but meals are carefully balanced and
highly seasoned dishes or injurious food com-
binations are eliminated.

Every meal is prepared under the direct super-
vision of an experienced chef. Under this direc-
tion our pupils are served with some of the most
delicious and healthful viands which can be put
together — all of which is evidenced by the stu-
dents' enthusiastic approbation of the Institute
table fare.

Scrupulous Cleanliness: Every part of the
Institute Buildings is kept scrupulously clean —
every day in the year. In this respect the Bogue
Institute surpasses many of the best hotels.

Library: The leading papers and magazines
are constantly available and we encourage stu-

ITS CAUSE AND CUKE 251

dents to keep in touch with the world of events
by regular reading.

How the Time is Spent: The order of the day
is as follows :

6 :30 A. M Arise

7 to 8 A. M Breakfast

8 to 9 A. M Special Study

9 to 11 A. M Morning Treatment Period

11 to 12 A. M.. . .Progress Tests, Special Exam-

ination and Personal Instruction

12 to 2 p. M Luncheon Period

2 to 4 p. M Class Instruction

4 to 6 p. M Recreation

6 p. M Dinner

8 p. M.. .Children's Junior Class Retiring Hour

9 p. M.. .Children's Senior Class Retiring Hour
10 p. M Adults' Last Retiring Hour

There are no classes on Saturday afternoon nor
on Sundays or hoUdays. There are no evening
or night classes at any time and no student may
enroll who is not in a position to devote all the
needed time to the pursuit of the work. There

252 STAMMERING

is no part-time course, permitting the student to
work or go to public or high school while attend-
ing the Bogue Institute. The work here is too
important to become a "side-issue." We insist
that it be the student's regular and only absorb-
ing activity.

Lectures: From time to time during the year,
open lectures are given by myself and assistant
instructors dealing with the fundamentals of
speech or kindred subjects aimed to make for the
students' rapid progress. These lectures are im-
portant and must be attended by every student.

A Carefully-Planned Course: Every step of
the student's course from the time of arising in
the morning to the time of retiring at night, is
planned for the best results. Experience has
taught us what is best and the day's program is
built upon the lines of greatest progress in a
given time. There are no haphazard steps in this
program — each activity accomplishes a desirable
and necessary result. These are the things that
make for sure and rapid success — and which
insure that every day shall show progress over
the day before.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 253

In the work of the Bogue Institute every stu-
dent's course is under my direct and personal
supervision and direction. I am, of course, nec-
essarily aided by assistant instructors, each of
whom was selected with especial reference to
his fitness for the work which is entrusted to
him.

Every Teacher a Specialist: Each one is a
specialist — a master, backed not only by a
thorough experience in the Bogue Institute, but
also having served an extended apprenticeship
under my personal instruction.

Every specialist responsible for any depart-
ment of our instruction must meet certain
rigid qualifications. First, they must be well-
educated, refined and of the best character. They
must understand the stammerer's difficulty from
a moral and mental standpoint as well as from
a technical standpoint. They must maintain a
naturally sympathetic,cheerf ul and helpful frame
of mind at all times and must be able to prove
that the training under my hand has thoroughly
qualified them to serve the pupils of the Bogue
Institute.

The long period of training and apprentice-

254 STAMMERING

ship, which has always been an outstanding
feature of our niethods, could be done away with,
should I desire to cheapen the instruction. In-
experienced instructors could be employed for
less than half the compensation of the experts
I now employ — but these things could be sacri-
ficed only at the expense of results. For many
years the superiority of the Bogue Institute
faculty has been nationally recognized and this
reputation we are today maintaining — and
improving, where this is possible.

CHAPTER VII

MY MOTHER AND THE HOME LIFE AT THE
INSTITUTE

THE home life at the Bogue Institute can-
not be mentioned without also mentioning
my mother and the work she has done and is do-
ing to make this truly a home life. This is her work
and she has succeeded. She represents the pivotal
point around which that home life turns and she
is the guiding spirit that makes the Institute a
real home for those who come here. It is her
beneficent smile that makes you feel at home
when you arrive, her kindly influence which
makes you feel at home during your whole stay
and her smiling God-speed when you go, that
makes you wish it were not time to leave.

Under Mother Bogue's direction, the Institute
is a busy, happy, cheerful and well-ordered home
for the big and happy family that it houses.

Music is here for those who wish to play.
Games and books and magazines for those who
would thus entertain themselves and others. We
are acquainted with the truth that "all work

256 STAMMERING

makes Jack a dull boy — and Jill a dull girl" —
and whlolesome and worth-while amusements and
diversions are provided for all ages and all occa-
sions. These amusements are for those who wish
them — those who do not can always find rest and
quiet in their own rooms.

Rowdyism is absent. The hoodlum is not here.
We find no difficulty in establishing standards of
conduct that become the lady and the gentleman
— and the regulations that are in effect are based
upon the belief that those who come here can
and will measure up to these standards.

Unity of Purpose: One of the distinct advan-
tages of the plan whereby all students live in the
Institute Dormitory is that all who are here have
come for a purpose and bear that thought in
mind. The student who sits beside you at the
table is here for the same purpose as yourself.
You are both working for the same thing — ^work-
ing earnestly, enthusiastically, seriously — ^and
withal, successfully — to be cured of stammering.

What does this mean?

It means that the very atmosphere of the In-
stitute is saturated with energy, enthusiasm and
the spirit of successful endeavor. Determina-

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 257

tion, application, success — these things are in the
very air you breathe. The spirit that carries an
army to victory is here — to carry you to victory
and success.

Absolute Privacy in Treatment: There is
absolutely no pubhcity connected with the attend-
ance of any student at the Institute. Many stu-
dents have attended without even their families or
friends being aware of the fact. Others have
come leaving behind the impression that they
were visiting friends — ^which in truth, they were,
as they afterwards found those connected with
the Institute to be sincere and worth-while
friends, indeed.

Even in carrying on correspondence regarding
the course, no one need know anything about
your intentions, for upon no occasion does the
name of the Institute appear on the outside of
any letter or package addressed to you. Only
the name "Benjamin N. Bogue" appears to
identify the letter.

At no time will your name, address or any
information about you in connection with your
name be published or discussed in any public
manner whatsoever without your permission.

258 STAMMERING

Care of the Health: Every safeguard is
thrown around the physical welfare of those
attending the Institute. The location and ex-
traordinary sanitary precautions almost preclude
the possibility of protracted illness — this was
evidenced by the startling fact that during the
severe and nation-wide influenza epidemic of the
fall and winter of 1918-1919, not a single stu-
dent of the Institute was taken Ul. This speaks
wonders for the remarkable good physical con-
dition of the many students who were here at
that time.

In the event, however, that a student does
become ill, the Institute House Physician is at
once summoned and in the case of a child, this
physician's opinion will be sent immediately to
the parents.

In illness as in health, the kindly, courteous
and yet unobtrusive services of Mother Bogue
are at the disposal of the student. Every care is
bestowed, special meals provided and every want
looked after with the same pains as if the student
were in his or her own home.

Christian Influences: Indianapolis is a city of
numerous beautiful churches of all denomi-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 259

nations, many of which are in the immediate
vicinity of the Institute. During the entire stay,
students are surrounded by the very best moral
and religious influences and each Sunday sees
groups of students leaving the Institute to attend
services at the different churches.

Children Properly Cared For: Children
placed in our care are given special attention. As
with the other students they are surrounded with
the most wholesome moral influences. Regula-
tions provide that they must remain inside the
Institute grounds except during the proper hours
of the day, following their regular work. It is a
very frequent occurrence to have parents bring
their children with the idea of remaining with
them during the course, only to return home
within a few days, leaving the children with us,
having satisfied themselves in that short time that
the children are being just as well cared for here
as if they were in their own homes.

Parents sometimes remark that children will
get homesick and want to go home, but our
experience with hundreds of cases proves that it
is usually the parent who gets homesick to see the
child instead of the child getting homesick to see

17

260 STAMMEEING

the parents. The home-like surroundings of the
Institute and the care and attention which they
are given, allow small opportunity for children
to become homesick, especially when it is remem-
bered that they are busy for the larger portion of
the day, at work which is to them of absorbing
interest. In fact, we often find that children
make so many good friends that they are reluc-
tant indeed when the time comes for them to
retiu-n home. Many of our students can testify
that some of the finest friendships of their hves
had their beginning here at the Bogue Institute.

Care for Ladies: My lady-assistants, as well
as Mother Bogue, will see to the comfort arid
enjoyment of lady-pupils. Ladies have their own
dormitories in a separate portion of the building
and find their stay a most enjoyable one.

A Reflection of Ideals: The congenial home-
life at the Institute, the minute attention to the
wants of the students, the care given to women
and children, the sohcitude for those who are ill
or who for any reason need special attention —
this is but the reflection of an ideal — that ideal is
to make the Bogue Institute, not only in instruc-

ITS CAUSE AND CUEE 261

tion and results, but in every way, just what I
would have liked to have been able to find when
I was searching for a cure for stammering,
more than twenty-five years ago. The com-
forts, the conveniences, the atmosphere of help-
fulness — these things all contribute toward your
quick and certain success — and that, I may say,
is why we have them.

THINGS YOU WANT TO KNOW

Deposit Surplus Money: As a matter of con-
venience to those who bring with them extra
money, we grant them the privilege of depositing
it in our safe. Other valuables may be left for
safe-keeping when desired. If the students
prefer, they may deposit rnoney with one of the
city banks. Pupils should not carry much money
with them; they may lose it.

Pupils' Mail: Relatives, friends and others
addressing letters to persons in attendance at this
Institute should address all mail to students:
"c/o Benj. N. Bogue" to avoid delay in de-
livery.

Foreign Students: It will be necessary for
those who speak foreign languages to learn the

262 STAMMERING

English language before they will be admitted to
this Institute, The instruction is only given in
English, but persons of all nationalities can be
cured if they have the proper knowledge of the
English language. When once cured in one
language, persons are cured in all languages,
however.

Companions for Pupils: Parents, guardians
or companions may accompany small children or
others, when they wish to do so. It is entirely
satisfactory for those accompanying the pupil to
be associated with the children during treatment.
They may room together, if desired, or they may
secure adjoining rooms.

When You Leave for Home: When neces-
sary, we secure railroad tickets for our young
pupils, check their baggage and place them safely
aboard the proper train, when they leave Indian-
apolis for home, and otherwise take especial and
careful interest in having them properly started
homeward after their stay with us.

Itich and Poor Sta/nd Equal: Claim is made
that this is one of the most commendable features

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 263

of the Institute. It is not so in all institutes.
Fine clothes and freedom with money are not the
test by which the student secures his standing,
but by his earnest, faithful work and gentlemanly
or lady-like conduct. It is inward worth, not
outward adornment and display of wealth, that
wins friends and gives the student a place on our
roll of honor. The student is judged by what he
is, and not by what he has.

Neglected Education: No one need hesitate
to place himself under our instruction on account
of neglected education or advanced age. All
embarrassments are carefully avoided. Scores of
backward pupils, who do not even know how to
read or write, enter every year, and are entirely
and permanently cured by the Unit Method.

CHAPTER VIII

A HEAET-TO-HEART TALK WITH PARENTS

IF you are the mother or father of a child who
stammers, you should first of aU read Chap-
ters IX to XIV, inclusive, in Part Two of this
book. These chapters deal with the speech dis-
orders of children from before the first spoken
word up until the age of 21, when structurally as
well as legally the mind and body of the infant
merge into that of the adult.

No mother or father can understand their
child's disorder without having read these Chap-
ters. To fail to imderstand is to multiply the
chance for error in deciding what to do. There-
fore, I repeat, if you are the mother or father of
a boy or girl who stammers, read chapters on
Child Stammering before you go further.

There are three mistaken beliefs in the minds
of many parents of stammering children which
must be rooted out before the child will have an
opportunity to be cured of his trouble.

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE 265

These beliefs are:

1 — That the child will outgrow his trouble
and therefore need only be permitted
to "grow older," at which time the
trouble will disappear.

2 — That the child could stop stammering if
he would try — that the trouble is but a
malicious habit of the child's, which he
could put away from him if he would.

3 — That the child's trouble is incurable and
that nothing can be done for him.

All of these beliefs are entirely fallacious and
based purely upon ignorance of the cause and
progress of the child's trouble. There is not the
slightest scientific foundation for them, they are
not beliefs based on facts or upon experience —
yet in many homes, they constitute the chief
obstacle between the stammering child and his
complete and permanent cure.

As long as you believe that your child will out-
grow his or her trouble, you take no steps to have
the disorder eradicated.

What happens?

The trouble becomes worse from month to
month and from year to year, until in many cases

266 STAMMEKING

where the "outgrowing behef" persists, the
trouble passes into a chronic and incurable stage
and the stammering child becomes the stammer-
ing man or woman, condemned to go through life
under a handicap almost too great to bear.

Write it on your heart that your child will not
outgrow his trouble. Ponder over the informa-
tion given in the Chapters on Child Stammering.
This is not hearsay or guess-work but facts
gleaned from a lifetime of experience.

If you, as the father or mother of a stammer-
ing child, cling to the second belief, that your
child could stop stammering if he would try, then
I can see from this distance that your child has
stored up for him in the future, more than his due
of misery. For as long as you believe that he can
stop of his own free will, you will be impatient
with him when he stammers. You will scold him
and tell him to "stop that kind of talking!" Thus
you will irritate him, and bring to his heart that
sickening sensation that he is totally helpless in
the grip of his speech disorder and yet — "Oh,
why will they not understand?"

Like the first belief, this behef that the child
could stop if he wanted to, is based upon igno-
rance. No mother or father who has ever expe-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 267

rienced the sensation of fear that grips the heart
of the stammering child when he tries to speaib,
will say that he could stop if he would.

I say to you — and I want to emphasize this —
that the first and foremost ambition of your child
who stammers, is to be free from it. The greatest
day of his life will be the day when he can talk
without that fear, without sticking and stumbling
and hesitating over his utterances.

I say to you again — if that boy or girl of yours
could stop their stammering, he or she would stop
it this very instant. They would never stammer
again — if they were endowed with the power to
stop. But they are not. That is the very seed
of their trouble — their inability to control the
actions of the vocal organs so as to produce
normal speech. They have lost the control of
those organs and they cannot of their own voli-
tion re-establish that control.

The third belief, that stammering cannot be
cured, is so easily demolished that I shall devote
but little time to it. It, like all false behefs, has
its foundation in ignorance. The mother or
father who knows the facts, knows also that stam-
mering can be cured. You may not know
whether your boy or girl can be cured, but you

268 STAMMEKINQ

are offered a way to find out — definitely and
positively, by describing your child's case on my
Diagnosis Blank and returning it to me for a
thorough Diagnosis.

Put your beliefs to one side — ^whatever they
may be. You can get the facts if you want them.
You can learn the truth if you will. Truth is
better than false beliefs and facts are better than
superstition or hearsay, which in every case leads
to misery, dejection and despair — a ruined life
where a successful, happy and contented life
might have been — except for stammering.

You have a well-defined responsibility to your
son or daughter. You have a duty to perform —
that is, to equip that boy or girl of yours to go
out into the world as well equipped as any other
boy or girl — and that means equipped with per-
fect speech — without which they will be too
greatly handicapped to fully succeed.

CHAPTER IX

THE DANGEKS OF DELAY

IN many of the cases which have come to my
attention in the past many years, the stam-
merer or stutterer has been afflicted with a malady
more difficult to cure than stammering, viz. : The
Habit of Procrastination.

"Oh, I will wait a little while," says the stam-
merer. "A little while can't make any differ-
ence!" And then the little while grows into a
big while and the big while grows into a year and
the year grows into a lifetime and he is still
stammering.

Several months ago, an old man, stooped in
stature, care-worn of countenance and halting of
step, presented himself to me for diagnosis. His
face was drawn into long, hard lines. His eyes
shifted from side to side, glancing furtively here
and there.

In his trembhng hands was a worn old derby
which he turned about nervously as he stood there
talking. The nervousness, the trembling of the
hands, the drawn face, the shifting eyes — all this

270 STAMMERING

was explained by the story that this man told as
he sat there beside the desk.

"I fell from a ladder when I was ten years
old," he said. "After that, I always stammered.
My parents thought it was a habit — I can remem-
ber yet how my mother scolded me day after day
and told me to 'quit talking that way.' But it
was useless to tell me to quit. I COULDN'T
quitl If I could have done it, certainly I would,
for having stanmiered yourself, you know what it
means.

"School now began to be a burden. I think I
must have suppHed fun for every boy on the
school grounds during recess-time, for if there
was a boy who didn't make fun of me and
mock me and laugh at me, then I don't know who
he was.

"Then one day I started back to school at
noontime, saw a crowd of boys on the corner a
couple of blocks away, thought of what a task it
would be to go into that crowd or try to pass it.
A mortal and unreasoning fear came over me.
Try as I would, I couldn't screw my courage up
to the point of going past that crowd. But I
had small choice. It was either go that way or
stay out of school. And stay out of school I did.

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 271

"And then came the crucial day. I could not
ask my parents to vouch for any absence — I
dared not tell them I was not there. So I went
back without an excuse. The teacher was angry.
She tried to get me to talk, but I could not say a
word. So she sent me to the principal. She, too,
asked me to explain. Try as I would, I couldn't
get the first word out. Not a soimd.

"She, too, failed to understand. Result: I
was expelled from school — sorry day — ^nobody
seemed to understand my trouble — ^nobody
seemed to sympathize with me — a stammerer.

"Although I pretended to be at school, before
the week was out, my parents found out. Then
a storm ensued. I tried to tell them the
truth. They wouldn't listen. Father stormed
and mother scolded. There seemed to be no liv-
ing for me there. So I ran away from home —
ran away because my parents wouldn't listen
— because they wouldn't try to understand.

"Then my troubles began in real earnest. I
won't worry you with the details. I got a job —
lost it. Got another — lost that. How many
times that story was repeated I do not know.
And remember — I was but a boy I"

Here the old man stopped, his head dropped,

18

272 STAMMERING

his unkempt beard brushed the front of a tattered
shirt, that had seen its day. He seemed lost in
thought — ^he was hving again those days and
those nights when he had wandered an outcast
from the world. He was living over a lifetime
in a moment.

He sat there several moments — thoughts far
away. Then he raised his head and there was a
tear in the corner of his eye as he said, "But why
should I go on? Look at me. See where I
am. See what I am. You would think I am
over 70 — I am not yet 50. But it is too late to
do any good. Here I am homeless, friendless,
almost penniless. Nobody cares what happens.
Nobody would notice if anything should happen.
Nobody has a job for me — a stammerer. If I
could talk, I could work. If I could talk — Oh,
but why tell it again? It is too late now — ^too
late to do any good!!"

He was right. It was too late. Too late,
indeed.

This man was one of the Too-Laters — one of
the Put-It-Offs, one of the Procrastinators. His
might be called the story of the Man Who
Waited.

First, his parents refused to listen. His teach-

ITS CAUSE AND CURE 273

ers, even, failed to xmderstand his trouble. And
when he got out in the world he put it off,
this matter of being cured of stammering. He
Waited! He kept saying to himself that he
would do it tomorrow — ^next week — ^next month.
And tomorrow never came. Next week and next
month ran into next year — and next year ran
into a case that was hopeless and incurable.

He Waited!! How tragic those two words.
He Waited! And his waiting sounded the death-
knell of a thousand boyhood hopes. He Waited!!
And health slowly took wings and flew away, he
waited!! And the insidious little Devil-of-Fear
piece by piece tore down his will-power, sapped
his power-of -concentration. HE WAITED!!
And that first simple nervous condition turned
into something near akin to palsy.

On the tombstone of that man when they lay
him under his six-feet-of-earth, they might truly
inscribe the words: "A Failure" — and should
they wish to set down the reason, they might add:
"He Waited!"

To the stammerer's question : "When should
I begin treatment for my stammering?" and "At
what stage will I stand the best chance of being
most quickly cured?" there is but one answer.

274 STAMMERING

The time for the stammerer or stutterer to begin
treatment for his malady is the day he discovers
his stammering or stuttering. The best chance
for being quickly cured exists today.

The stammerer, then, to paraphrase Emerson,
should "Write it on his heart that TODAY is
the very best day in the year." He should
remember that indecision, delay, uncertainty,
vacillation, lead to oblivion and that his only
redemption lies in that golden opportunity
known as — today 1

INDEX

Adenoids, relaxed palate following

operation for, 65.
Adolescence, dangers of, 144-146
Advice to Parents, 132, 141, 264
Anatomy, author begins study of, 57
Aphasia,

Case of, 113-114

defined, 67-69

in stuttering, 105
Association of Ideas, 122-125

"Baby Talk,"

eradication of, 131

may cause permanent defect, 131

Bell, Dr. Alexander Melville, 102
on outgrowing stammering, 102
successful mode of procedure, 186
value of early treatment, 143

Bogue Test described, 196, 197

Brain,

as controlling organ, 74
impulse improperly transmitted,

77
typical case of diseased, 169

Brooding, mark of adolescence, 146

Ci arelessuess, cause of stammering,
62.

Cases, Typical

adolescent girl, 215
aphasia, 113
attempted suicide, 147
believed incurable, 181-183
combined stammering and stut-
tering, 209
concealed symptoms, 198
disobedient, 172, 173
dissipator, 174, 175
failure in school, 154, 155
habitual alcoholic, 221, 222
imitation, 210, 211
insanity following stuttering, 68
minister, 223, 224
multiple thought, 203
physical improvement, 205, 206
Polish boy, Sl2, 214
prefix stammerer, 225, 226
procraatinator, 170, 171, 269
"seldom stammerer," 222, 223
severe spasmodic, 204
singer who stammered, 220, 221
speechless, 206
synonym stammerer, 226-228
thought lapse, 219, 220
unconscious imitation, 216-219
wrong methods failed, 162, 163

Children, Defective Speecli In,
(See Speech, Defective, in
Children)
Children, Care of, 259
Child Vocabulary, echo of home vo-
cabulary, 128
Chorea, Acute, as cause of stutter-
ing, 66
Combined Stammering and Stutter-
ing, defined, 71
Contortions, Facial,
in stuttering, 68
in spasmodic stammering, 70
Contractions, Muscular,
in author's case, 28
in choreatic stuttering, 66
in neurotic lisping, 65
in spasmodic stammering, 70
in spastic speech, 67
severe case of, 95, 96
Co-ordination,
defined, 191
cause of lack of, 79
lack of, cause of stammeringi, 77
illustration of lack of, 78
result of correct mental images,
122
Correspondence Courses,

(See Cures, Mail Order)
Cures,

additional results, 204
Alexander Melville Bell on, 186
author discovers successful meth-
od of, 58
author's experience with —
divine healer, 48
electrical treatments, 46
elocution, 42
hypnotism, 44
magnetic healing, 45
mail order, 27, 28
osteopathy, 48
physician, 21
professor, 42
"rest cure," 32
surgeon, 49

traveling medicine man, 22
author successfully applies to

himself, 59
certainty of, 286, 237
division of time, 251
first step in, 199, 200
foundation of, 199
home, suggestions for, of chil-
dren, 132-134

276

STAMMERING

Cares — Continued
incurable cases, 167
mail order, 177-180
method at work, 199
method described, 196
method three-fold, 192
not hopeless, 162, 163
permanency of, 192, 239-242
psychic benefits resulting from,

206-207
reason for failures, 187
reasons for false beliefs, 160, 161
secret of, 187

self-cures, questionable, 164
successful procedure, 186
surgery, 188

three units of instruction, 200
wrong methods harmful, 34

Deformity,

(See Organic Defect)
Delay, loss occasioned by, 272
Dentition, Second, period of dan-
ger, 136
Despondency, result of stammering,
, 114
Diagnosis, defined, 181

first need for, 142

important, 182

in written form, 183

need for, 198

what it should show, 184
Disease, as cause of stammering,

88, 89
Disobedience, prevents cure, 171-

173
Dissipation,

aggravant of stammering, 174,
194, 195

typical chronic ease, 174, 175
Divine Healer, author's experience

with, 48

E/dncatlon, difficult for stammering
child, 128-140

Electrical Treatments, author's ex-
perience with, 46

Elocution,

author's experience with school

of, 42
books on, 177

Entrance Examination, 196

Exhilaration, feeling of, when
cured, 230-232

Facts, Need for, 233
Failures,

due to ignorance, 189

mail cures, 179

reason for, 187
Fall, as cause of stammering, 85-88
Fear, child's feeling of, 138
Feeble Lip,

(See LipJ
Formative Period, The, cause of

speech disorders arising in, 132
Fright, as cause of stammering,

83-85

Gulick, IiUthcr M., 139, 140

Habit of Success,

Haxe-IJp
(See Lip)

Health,

care of, 258

Charles Kingsley on, 118-119

effect of stammering on, 117-118

Healer, Divine, author's experience
with, 48

Healing, Magnetic, author's experi-
ence with, 45

Hearing, Defective, 65

Heredity,

as cause of stammering, 88
influence on stammering, 52

Hesitation, Defined, 69

High Palatal Arcb, 65

Hlrscbberg, Dr. L. K,, on outgrow-
ing stammering, 110

How We I^am to Talk, 125

Hypnotism,

author's experience with, 44
not used, 199

Ideas, association of, 122-125
Images, Mental, How acquired, 122
Imagination, 193
Imitation, source of word-pictures,

128
Improvement,

conscious of, 202

in physical condition, 205
Inilueuce, value of moral, in cure,

194

ITS CAUSE AND CURE

277

Injury, as cause of
85-88

stammering,

Insanity,

result of stammering, 116.

result of stuttering, 63, 69
Instruments, dangerous in use, 180
Intermittent Tendency, Tbe,

author's experience with, 26, 30

dangerous aspect, 97

dangers of, 101

period of improvement, 97

period of relapse, 99

recurrence

(See Period of Relapse)

Jaw

overshot, 65
undershot. 65

Klngsley, Charles,

effect of stammering, 152
effect of stammering on health,
118, 119

Library, 250
Lip,

Hare, 65

feeble, 65
Usping, 65

negligent, 64

neurotic, 65

organic, 65

jMagnetic Healing, author's expe-
rience with, 45
Mall Order Courses,

(See Cures)
Mail Order Cures,

(See Cwes)
Mental Defectives, Few, 175
Mental Suggestion,

(See Hypnotism)
, Milk Teeth,

(See Dentition)
Mimicry, as cause of stammering,

81
Mind,

a case of aphasia, 113-114

effect of stammering on, 113
Moral Influence,

(See Influence)

stammering.

Movements, Spasmodic,
abnormal case, 96
in aphasia, 69
in author's case, 28
in choreatic stuttering, 66
in neurotic lisping, 65
in spasmodic stammering, 70

Nasal Passages, Obstructed, 65

Negligent Lisping,
(See Lisping)

Kerrousness,

believed cause of

187
effect of stammering on, 153

Nervous Shock, as cause of stam-
mering, 83-85

Neurotic Lisping
(See Lisping)

Newton, Eev. David r., on effects
of stammering, 152

Organic Defects,

cause of lisping, 65

cause of speech disorder, 62

not cause of stammering, 76

statistics on, 76

Organic Lisping,

(See Lisping)
Osteopathy, author's experience

with, 48
Outgrowing Stammering,

absurd conclusion, 109

chances for, during adolescence,
149

chances for, in formative period,
134, 135

chances for, in speech-setting pe-
riod, 140

early advice given to author, 24

harmful advice, 109

"harmful doctrine," 110

Hirsohberg, Dr. L. K., on, 110

origin of belief, 111

physician on, 141

reason for early belief in, 26

reason for failure, 111-112

statistics of cases, 109-110

Palate,

defective, 65
relaxed, 65
Palsy, Infantile Cerebral, as cause
of spastic speech, 67

278

STAMMERING

Parents, adrice to, 127, 141, 264
Peculiarities,

cause of, 90

sing without diiSculty, 90, 91

talk to animals, 31

talk when alone, 31, 91-94
PhUadepUa, author' s experience

in, 40
Physical Deformity,

(See Organic Detect)
Physician, author's experience with,

21
Pitch, variations in, 73
Plan-ot-attack, 199
Position, author seeks for, 36-38
Frocrastlnators,

example of, 272

incurable, 169

typical case, 170, 171
Progress,

concealed, 103

daily record of, 201

tests to determine, 202
Progressive Tendency,

concealed progress, 103

manifested in author's case, 28

periods of transition, 102

usually present, 103
Pronunciation, Defective, 64
Purpose, Unity of, 256

Recitations,

oral necessary to memory, 138

written not equal to oral, 138
Becurrent Tendency,

(See Intermittent Tendency)
Bespcnslblllty, of parents to child,

268
Bldlcule,

author object of, 16

retards mental progress, 137, 138

School,

afuthor's experience in, 16-18

beginning of, for stammering
child, 186

problems of stammering child in,
187

■ending stammerers to, 138-140
Second Dentitloii,

(Bee Dentition)
Sounds, Substitution of, 65
Source of First Word, 126

Spasmodic Movements
(See Movements)

Specialist, every teacher a, 253

Speech, Defective, cause of, 75

Speech, Defective In Children,
"baby talk," eradication of, 131
"baby talk," may cause perma-
nent defect, 131
dangers of adolescence, 144-146
education a difficulty, 138-140
formative period, 128
four periods of growth, 120
pre-speaking period, 120
proper procedure, 266
speech-setting period, 136
suggestions for home treatment
132-134

Speech,

assistance needed by child, 129-

131
defined, 190

evolution of, in child, 129
how first produced by child, 121
how produced, 73
monetary value of, 243, 244
source of first word, 126

Speech, Spastic, 67

Speech, Stoppage In, 63

Speech,

success-value of, 244, 245
true principles constant, 40, 189

Speech Impediment, 63

Speech, Specialist, should have
stammered, 193

Stammering,

author's first books on, 11
author studies many books on, 57
bars education, 164
basic causes of, 80, 81
causes failure in business, 157
causes nervousness, 153
cause of Insanity, 116
defined, 69

despondency resulting from, 114
disease as cause, 88, 89
effect on health, 117, 118
effect on will-power, 116
elementary, defined, 70
elementary stage, 105
fall or injury as cause, 85-87
fright or nerve shock as cause,

83-85
heredity as cause, 88
heredity in author's case, 62
mental strain tells, 115'
mimicry, basic causes of, 81, 82

ITS CAUSE AND CUBE

279

Stammertng — Oontiuued

Newton, Eev. David F., on. ef-
fects of, 152

peculiarities of,

(See PeouliariUea)

primary mental stage, 106

progress of, 105, 106

spasmodic stage, 106

stammerer appears illiterate, 157

successive stages of, 105

suicides resulting from, 114

weakening effects of, 29
Stuttering,

aphasia, 106

choreatic, 66

chronic stage, 104

definition, 65

first a physical trouble, 104

phases of, 66

progress of, 103

simple, 104

successive stages of, 103

thought, defined, 67

unconscious, defined, 67
St. Vitus Dance,

(See Chorea)
Substitution, a deleterious practice,

165, 166
Suggestion, Mental,

(See Hypnotism)
Suicides,

ages of most frequent, in stam-
merers, 114, 115, 146, 147

result of stammering, 114
Surgeon, author's experience with,

49
Surgery, period of popularity, 188
Synchronization, result of, 193
Synonym Stammerer, The, 165

JLable, author's experience at, 19

Teetli, defective, 65

Test,

final cure, 202

first treatment, 202
Theories, hsU-baked English, 11

Thought Lapse,

(See Aphasia)
"Tic Speech,"

(See Choreatic Stuttering)
Tongue,

malformation of, 65

slitted for cure, 188
Tongue Tie, typical case, 168
Tonsils, Bemoval of,

recommended to author, 49

advice on, 49
Transition, Periods of, 102
Traveling Medicine Man, author's

experience with, 22
Treatments,

author's experience with elec-
trical, 46

home suggestions for, of chil-
dren, 132-134

Turning Point In Life, author's, 55
Typical Cases,

(See Cases, Typical)

Visitors, author's dread of, 19
Vocal Cords,

action of, 73

how used in speech, 190

in production of voice, 78
Voice,

how produced, 73

organs used in producing, 190

^'ilson. President, faultless speak-
er, 129
Word, First,

importance of, 126

mfluence of heredity on, 127

source of, 126

Youth,

dangers of adolescence, 144-146
period of most frequent suicide,

146, 147
period of rapid progress, 147,

148, 149

ADVERTISEMENTS

The Bogue Institute

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

|N INSTITUTION for the successful
treatment of stammering, stutter-
1^^^^ ing and kindred forms of defective
Training is bajsed on scientific reco-
ordination of brain and speech. No drugs,
electricity, hypnotism or medicines employed.
Bogue Unit Method used exclusively. Best of
home care and comfort are to be found in the
dormitories which are maintained under the
supervision of and in connection with the
Institute.

In contmuous operation, for more
than twenty-five years under the
■personal direction of the fov/nder.

Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

FreHdent and Principal

THE EMANCIPATOR

Edited and Published by
Benjamin Nathamiel Bogue

MAGAZINE devoted to the interests
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The whole purpose of The Emancipator
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