STAMMERING:
THE BEASLEY TREATMENT.
STAMMERING:
THE BEASLEY TREATMENT
BY
W. J. KETLEY
BIRMINGHAM !
Ml'DtON AND SOS, EDMUND tTRCtT AND UVStl JTXIIT
Mr. W. J. Ketley.
To face page v.
THE BEASLEY SYSTEM
Perfected 1876.
ESTABLISHMENT FOR THE CURE OF
STAMMERING AND ALL DEFECTS OF SPEECH
« TARRANGOWER,"
Willesden Lane, Brondesbury, N.W.
For the reception of Resident
and Non - Resident Pupils.
Trincipah Mr.W.J.KETLEY,
assisted by Mrs. Ketley [nee
Beasley) and the Misses
Winnie and Gladys Ketley.
" Tarrangower " is situated about 4 miles North West of
Charing Cross and within five minutes' walk of Brondesbury
Station.
In 1890 the late Mr. Beasley, in the course of
an interview with Mr. Raymond Blathwayte, said : —
" My son-in-law, Mr. W. J. Ketley, who superintends
my house in London, and has studied and taught
my system for twenty years, is even more patient
than I am, and I feel that whenever I am obliged
to give the work up it will be carried on just as
effectually, if not indeed more so, as ever it has
been in my own time." — See p. 90.
'
Preface.
In presenting this book to those whom it may
concern, I desire to point out that since the
deaths of the late Mr. Benjamin Beasley and
his son the conduct of the Beasley system
of treatment for the cure of stammering has
fallen upon myself.
Before the late Mr. Beasley made the dis-
covery which eventually led to his cure, I was
associated with him in business, and sym-
pathetically watched the gradual process of
his cure, aiding him with suggestions and
talking over with him his difficulties until his
impediment was entirely removed. I thus
assisted him from the very first in the
development of the system.
Having fully realised the value of that sys-
tem, we disposed of our commercial enterprise
viii. STAMMERING.
and jointly took up the work of ministering to
others in an establishment at Hall Green,
Worcestershire. I was his constant companion,
living in the same house, assisting in instructing
the very first classes of pupils, aiding in the
writing of his books, and helping in the elabora-
tion of the exercises that were found necessary
to meet the different forms of stammering and
the different temperaments of stammerers who
came to us for relief.
Later, when the growth of the business made
extensions necessary, Brampton Park was
taken for country pupils, and an establishment
in London was opened, of which I have had sole
charge for the past thirty years, and where I
have given instruction to many hundreds of
stammerers with complete success. Through-
out the whole of this period the system has
stood the test of trial, and has proved itself to
be the best and most reliable one ever
invented for the relief of stammerers, whether
young or old.
PREFACE. ix
For the young, the treatment is concurrent
where desired, with the combination of ordin-
ary studies in science, art, languages, and
music, as well as in all elementary subjects ; so
that a pupil undergoing treatment for stam-
mering may not fall back in his studies in
other subjects. Students can also be coached
for matriculation or other examinations.
Tarrangower has been specially equipped for
the reception of pupils of all ages. It is in a
delightful district, within easy reach of the
West End, and contains facilities for outdoor
recreation, including tennis, and indoor amuse-
ments.
In conclusion, I wish to draw the attention
of parents especially to the chapter on the
Danger of Delay. The picture is by no means
overdrawn ; the stories that have been poured
into my ears and the obvious effects of their
impediment on many of the pupils who have
ultimately come to me for relief having been
heartrending. While the child is young the
x. STAMMERING.
cure is easy ; with those of mature years it is
none the less certain, though greater watch-
fulness and care and more determination are
necessary to obtain relief. And by that time
great suffering has been endured.
In all cases the responsibility of parents is
greater than they know, and for every one of
those to whom this book may bring a fuller
sense of that responsibility it will be some con-
solation to the writer to feel that at least an
effort will be made to rescue a sensitive soul
from a purgatory of living torment.
W. J. KETLEY.
Tarrangower, 178 Willesden Lane,
Brondesbury, N.W.
Contents.
CHAPTER I. page
Stammering: Its Handicap and Cause i
CHAPTER II.
The Danger of Delay 9
CHAPTER III.
The Organs of Speech 20
CHAPTER IV.
Active Causes of Stammering: 28
CHAPTER V.
Forms of Stammering 34
CHAPTER VI.
Stammering v. Natural Methods of Speech 40
CHAPTER VII.
The Stammerer at School 47
CHAPTER VIII.
The Beasleyi\ Other Systems 54
xii. CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX. p AGE
Advice to my Pupils 5 3
CHAPTER X.
A Product of Civilisation
CHAPTER XII.
Reminiscences of a Stammerer
Illustrations.
Mr. W. J. Ketley
Tarrangower
Tarrangower : Lecture Room
Tarrangower : Drawing Room
Mr. B. Beasley
69
CHAPTER XI.
An Independent Witness ^g
98
facing page y.
9
72
„ 104
Chapter I.
Stammering : Its Handicap and
Cause.
To those afflicted with stammering there is
only one subject of importance — their per-
manent cure. Their infirmity is an ever
present torment, marring the happiness of
the present, blurring the visions and destroy-
ing the ideals of the future. Few except those
who do stammer realise what an awful handi-
cap in life the affliction imposes.
To the inveterate stammerer almost as
many avenues of life are closed as to the
deaf and dumb. The army, the navy, the
civil service, public appointments, and public
office of every kind, parliament, the pulpit,
the bar and the scholastic professions are
2 STAMMERING.
sealed against them ; while in all the learned
professions — the professions associated with
the arts and sciences — the inability to give
vocal expression to their thoughts and designs
and discoveries is more or less a drawback and
an impediment to progress.
In business it is the same. Bankers,
merchants, stockbrokers, shippers and manu-
facturers prefer to have in their business
departments men of facile speech ; and even in
commercial callings where stammering may
not be an actual bar, it remains a fact that the
stammerer is seriously handicapped by his
impediment, both in obtaining employment
and in the fulfilment of his every-day duties.
The stammering journalist dreads every
interview he has to undertake, the stammering
mechanic finds it difficult to give technical
instructions or ask for details as to the work
he has to do, the stammering shopkeeper is
unable to explain the merits of his goods as
he would wish to do and as he knows he could
ITS HANDICAP. 3
do but for the fatal lack of harmony between
the nervous system and the mechanical organs
of speech, which locks his tongue and makes
eloquence impossible.
Even in the humbler walks of life the stam-
merer is debarred from many callings. He can
neither be railway porter, nor guard, nor
engine driver, nor policeman, nor soldier, nor
jack-tar. His unreadiness of speech haunts him
even as a carter or checker, and only in the most
humble callings where silence is golden, and
physical work alone is required, can he be said
to feel least the restraint of his affliction.
Should he be tempted to go abroad, he may
find even the gates of foreign countries closed
against him as an emigrant, the example in
this direction having already been set by the
United States, where inveterate stammering
is held to be a sufficient cause for refusing to its
victim admission at the ports.
Yet among all men in the world there are
none as a class who are better equipped in
4 STAMMERING.
mental ability, in versatility, in depth ot
penetration, in nervous force, than the
stammerer.
Carlyle, one of the keenest observers of his
day, when he said that he never knew a stam-
merer who was a fool, gave expression to a
truism that no one who has had experience of
stammerers will ever care to gainsa}^. [It is
the nervous force, the intense self-conscious-
ness, the keen mental vitality of the patient,
that in nine cases out of ten leads to the partial
breakdown of the harmonious association be-
tween the nervous and muscular mechanisms
of speech, and gives rise to the impediment.
Where the dullard stammers, the cause is
usually imitation of others, and with care his
cure should be easily effected. With the
stammerer in whom the affliction has arisen
from complex congenital causes, the case is
different ; but even for him there is the hope,
nay, more than the hope, there is the certainty
of cure, if the proper course be pursued.
THE CAUSE. 5
It must, however, be always remembered
that articulate speech is in its physiological
mechanism one of the most complicated of
human achievements, requiring a series of
nervous and muscular actions all of which must
be executed with precision and in accordance.
It is necessary, for example, as a learned
writer has explained in the Encyclopedia
Britannica, " that the respiratory movements,
more especially those of expiration, should
occur regularly and with nice adjustment to the
kind of articulate expression required ; that
the vocal chords be approximated and tightened
by the muscles of the larynx acting with delicate
precision so as to produce the sound of the
pitch desired ; that the rima glottidis (or
aperture of the larynx) be opened so as to pro-
duce prolonged sounds, or suddenly closed so as
to cut off the currents of air ; that the move-
ments of the muscles of the tongue, of the soft
palate, of the jaws, of the cheeks, and of the
lips occur precisely at the same time, and to the
6 STAMMERING.
requisite extent, and, finally, that all of these
muscular adjustments take place with rapidity
and smoothness, gliding into each other without
effort and without loss of time. Exquisite co-
ordination of muscular movement is therefore
necessary, involving also complicated nervous
actions. Hence is it that speech is acquired by
long and laborious effort.
" A child possesses voice from the beginning ;
it is born with the capacity for speech, but
articulate expression is the result of education.
In infancy, not only a knowledge acquired of
external objects and signs attached in the form
of words to the ideas thus awakened, but the
nervous and muscular mechanisms by which
these signs or words receive vocal expression
are trained by long practice to work harmoni-
ously.
' It is not surprising,therefore, that in certain
cases, owing to some obscure congenital defect,
the co-ordination is not effected with sufficient
precision, and that stammering is the result.
THE CAUSE. 7
Even in severe cases no appreciable lesion can
be detected either in the nervous or muscular
mechanisms, and the condition is similar to
what may affect all varieties of finely co-
ordinated movements. The mechanism does
not work smoothly, but the pathologist is
unable to show any organised defects."
This is the baffling mystery of the affliction.
It is not a disease. It is impossible for the
physician to put his finger on any nerve or any
part of the nervous system, or for the surgeon
to point to any physical defect, and for either
to suggest that by the stimulation of this nerve
or the removal or amendment of that organ of
speech a cure may be effected.
Neither drugs nor surgical treatment are of
avail, and medical men who know no cure are
therefore prone to tell parents that the child
will grow out of his infirmity. How hopelessly
wrong they are ten thousand stammerers could
bitterly explain.
But in the following pages it is demonstrated
8 STAMMERING.
that no stammerer need remain the prisoner of
his affliction. The history is given of an in-
veterate stammerer, who, having borne his
burden for over thirty years, Effected his own
cure, and in doing so evolved a system which
has been of incalculable benefit to thousands of
stammerers, and is still at the services of those
who, harassed by one of the most distressing
afflictions known to man, may, by perfectly
natural means, secure emancipation from the
thraldom in which they are held.
Chapter II.
The Danger of Delay.
One of the poets has told us that the pain and
suffering wrought by want of thought exceeds
in infinite volume that inflicted by want of
heart. And, so far as the stammering child
is concerned, no truer sentiment was ever
penned.
If the mother and father of a stammering
child only realised for one moment the possible
life-long hell to which they were allowing their
child to descend by neglecting the first symp-
toms of stammering, or refraining from taking
advantage of the best opportunity offered for
its cure, or hesitating in seeking out a remedy,
they would never forgive themselves.
Their distress on first noticing the hesitation
io STAMMERING.
or the distinct stammer is in most cases lulled
by the suggestion of the friend or the family
doctor that the child will grow out of it. Would
to Heaven there were any probability of this.
Then there might be some warrant, some justi-
fication for the assurance. But in not one case
out of a hundred is the assurance made good
by subsequent fact.
On the other hand, the hesitancy increases,
the stammering becomes more pronounced'
and though at home the child may seem cheer-
ful and happy and undisturbed, unconscious of
its disability, no one except a stammerer knows
how little truth there is in this seeming peace
and indifference.
Let the parent watch the child and see how,
when it is asking for a privilege or saying any-
thing under conditions which do not favour
self-forgetfulness, it begins to wince and get
confused and troubled by its impediment, and
they will get some dim and distant and very
faint idea of what is really happening.
THE DANGER OF DELAY. H
They will never know. Only the stam-
merer knows the suffering endured even as a
child, although protected and patiently borne
with by loving parents ; much less can anyone
but a stammerer know the agony of being
taken among strangers, or how soon the child
learns to shrink from other children, how
often he busies himself in looking out of win-
dows or examining books when his heart is
really at play with youngsters whom he fain
would but dare not join because of heedless
laugh and childish mockery.
From the first moment that the stammering
child becomes self-conscious, and learns that it
is not as other children, the iron begins to enter
its soul. The apparent pinpricks of the
mimicking playfellow, the sharply spoken word
of parent or brother or sister or nurse or gover-
ness for a fault the child cannot help and is
not taught to avoid because the parent knows
not the remedy, the estranging influences of
inability to explain itself are all, to the sensitive
12 STAMMERING.
child, much deeper sorrows than either parents
or brothers or sisters ever realise.
Day by day, hour by hour, the consciousness
of inability to speak as other children speak
is there, and the brighter and more intelligent
and more sensitive the child may be, the deeper
does its affliction wound.
In time the child becomes less sociable, more
and more disinclined to meet other children,
increasingly self-centred, and disposed to find
its own joys in solitary games or in poring over
books. Soon association with other children
becomes an ordeal, and any proposal to invite
friends a nightmare and the cause of intoler-
able distress.
When at length school days come to be talked
of, the poor child, though it may put on a bold
front, writhes in agony of mind ; and when at
last those school days materialise he learns to
curse his halting tongue and to hate the dawn
of every day because of the purgatory to which
his fellows thoughtlessly condemn him.
THE DANGER OF DELAY. 13
This is no fanciful picture. It is the true
story of nine out of every ten stammering chil-
dren, whose sufferings sear their little souls
each day.
Indeed could fathers and mothers fully
realise what the life of a stammerer means, no
child would ever grow up to be a stammering
man or woman. For a child suffering from a
painful illness, though of only a temporary
nature, parents often deny themselves much ;
for a child afflicted with a stammering tongue
they unfortunately, because they do not under-
stand the mental agony endured, trust to luck
for a cure.
Could they but know how scurvily luck may
treat their child, those in whom parental love
is strongest would realise that it were perhaps
better that their little one should be sleeping
peacefully in its grave than left to the mercies
of the wanton jade.
^Did they realise the ever present torment, the
constant dread, the lost opportunities and
i 4 STAMMERING.
mortifications that will make the child's life
hideous, dog his every footstep, mock his every
effort, there would be ten times the solicitude
shown towards him that is manifested over
the passing physical illness, however painful
it might be, and no rest till the remedy was
found and the halting tongue made fluent.
Once the child becomes nervous, self-con-
scious, constrained, the hope that it will grow
out of its affliction is vain, while the danger of
delay remains, namely, that as it grows older
the habit will become so ingrained that cure
will be ten times more difficult.
The boy or girl taken in hand just before
school age may be easily cured and sent to
school free from the tyrant, and rejoicing in
freedom of speech. The young man or young
woman entering on the duties of life will find
it more difficult to shake off the nervous dread
of speech and change the conduct of their
lives, and yet each is quite capable of
cure, though greater perseverance may be
THE CERTAINTY OF CURE. 15
demanded. But they need have no fear of
cure if they are steadfast, nor need either the
man or woman of middle-age, even though they
have been assiduously practising stammering
for the greater part of a life-time.
It is indeed never too late to mend, as Mr.
Beasley proved in his own case, and as has been
demonstrated in hundreds of cases since he
opened his first establishment nearly forty
years ago. There is not merely the possibility,
there is the certainty of cure for any one of
them if they have sufficient determination to
persist.
But undoubtedly the best time to tackle the
affliction is in early youth before the stings and
miseries of halting speech have wrecked the
nerves, or self-consciousness or introspective
habits have made the patient shrink within him-
self—before, in fact, the iron has entered too
deeply into the soul for him ever to forget.
Until the child has reached an age at which
he may be allowed to go from home, parents
16 STAMMERING.
themselves can do much to help and may even
effect a cure.
The wisest course for them to pursue, as Mr.
Beasley himself taught, is to apparently take
no notice of the impediment, but listen quietly
and patiently, and themselves set an example
by speaking slowly and thoughtfully. If kept
unconscious of his difficulty, the child may be
cured without his ever knowing that it existed.
Where the child is not constantly in the
mother's charge much may be done to stop the
fault in its incipient stages by taking care that
the nurse or governess is of a calm and placid
disposition, not likely to excite or hurry the
child, but on the contrary, to set an example at
every turn of quiet repose in speech and
manner.
The child stammerer is always highly strung
and intelligent, with thoughts flowing too
quickly for its yet limited powers of utterance.
Its intelligence, however, is obvious, and the
result is that the nurse or governess is only too
THE IMITATIVE CHILD. 17
ready to show it off to admiring friends, when
the child, knowing what is expected of it and
being eager to please, acquires habits that
quickly grow and develop to its life-long
detriment.
I have known more than one mother so
delighted with the pretty imperfections of her
little prattler that she has imitated it in her own
talk to the child. Did she but know how much
pain and suffering she was, alas ! thus courting
for her little one in after life, she would rather,
one would hope, have cut the tongue from her
own mouth than have done it.
Children are imitative, and in tender life no
bad example in speech, as in anything else,
should be set them, because whatever suffering
other bad habits may entail,the suffering caused
to the stammering child is an ever-present tor-
ment that so gnaws into the soul that in many
recorded cases it has in later life driven its
victims to suicide.
In its very earliest stages, therefore, every
18 STAMMERING.
effort should be made to check the persistence
of faulty speech, by avoiding hurry, keeping
the child in as placid an atmosphere as possible,
and when speaking to, or in the presence of it,
articulating each word slowly, clearly, and with
precision. Should such treatment fail to secure
the consummation so devoutly to be wished,
then, when the time comes at which the child
may be put under tuition, no time should be
lost in obtaining the best aid possible.
The parent in making selection should be on
his guard, taking care to satisfy himself that
the system has no tricks, no extraneous aids,
no suggestions of hypnotism or psychical
influences, no medicines or physical operations,
but is one that by natural means shall help
the child to acquire self-control, concentration
of thought, confidence in himself, and which
may, in its ultimate effect, make him a better
speaker than the majority of those who have
never suffered the disadvantages of such an
impediment.
SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT. 19
These requirements the Beasley system
fulfils in every detail, and it is because it does
this that it has, during the past forty years,
been so pre-eminently successful and so widely
recognised, not only in the United Kingdom,
but throughout the civilised world.
Chapter III.
The Organs of Speech.
Before considering the causes of stammering,
it may be well to explain the action of the
organs of speech. In doing so, there will be
no necessity to enter too minutely into detail.
The different positions the organs take during
the process of speech are as numerous as the
different formations of words ; to endeavour
to explain them would not only be an almost
endless task, but would serve no useful
purpose.
The organs of speech are ten in number.
They consist of the lungs, glottis, soft palate,
tongue, lower lip, lower jaw, hard palate, upper
teeth, upper gum, and upper lip. The first
six are active, the other four passive.
ORGANS OF SPEECH. 21
The lungs may be said to be the most
important of all, as without breath vocal sound
could not be produced, nor voice moulded into
words.
Respiration is principally assisted by the
action of the diaphragm (a muscular tissue
dividing the chest from the abdomen), which
falls and rises ; and by the sides of the breast,
which expand and contract when breath is
inspired and expired.
The glottis is the organ of sound, and is
situated in the larynx (or Adam's apple, as it is
called) , above the vocal chords. It is here that
the different sounds, acute or grave, are made,
depending on the greater or less opening of the
aperture, and consequent effect on the vocal
chords.
The soft palate is an organ which materially
assists in forming quality of voice. It is situa-
ted behind the hard palate (or roof of the
mouth), and extends to the throat, where the
communication with the nasal passages com-
22 STAMMERING.
mences. It opens these passages in all usual
sounds.
The other organs it is unnecessary to
describe ; they can be seen.
In speaking, the breath is emitted from the
lungs, producing sound in the glottis, which
sound is fashioned into words by the action of
the other organs of speech.
Although there are nearly forty different
formations, it will be sufficient to speak only
of five, and those consonantal, and used at the
beginning of words.
I do not mean that these five formations are
exactly alike in the different words which I
shall group together, but that for all practical
purposes they may be considered the same.
The few examples will, if carefully studied,
show the difference which occurs in the position
of the organs of speech during articulation.
Words beginning with B, P, or M are formed
by pressure of the lips together, and then
abrupt separation at the instant that the voice
ARTICULATION. 23
is made, as in bar, beg, bit, bother, but, by ;
pack, pen, pig, pot, put, pike ; man, met, mix,
mop, mud. The difference is caused by the
various vowels which are used. The same
remark will apply to other consonantal forma-
tion.
D, T, S, Z, and N require the tip of the
tongue to come in contact with the upper teeth,
where the teeth and gums meet, and simul-
taneously with vocal sound there must be cessa-
tion of contact, in order to articulate the
required word, as in dad,- deck, differ, doll,
duck, dye ; tack, tempt, till, toll, turf, tie ;
sack, send, sin, soft, suffer, sign ; zany, zeat,
zinc, zodiak, zumic ; name, Nell, nib, not,
nut.
C, G, J, K, L, Y, Sh, and Q, in the formation
of a word, require the tongue to be placed
against the hard palate. As in the former,
quick separation is necessary at the moment
the voice is made, as in cab, centre, cid, coffer;
cut, cite ; gad, gem, gin, gone, gutter, gyve ;
24 STAMMERING.
jack, jet, jim, jog, just ; kaw, keg, kick ; lame,
lend, limb, lost, lust, line ; yacht, yet, yon, yule ;
shame, shed, shine, shot, shut ; queen, quick,
quoth.
F and V are dental-labials, in which the lower
lip comes into contact with the upper teeth,
from which it is separated in commencing a
word, as in fact, fed, fin, fog, fuss, fye ; vane,
veer, vine, voice.
R, when trilled, requires the tip of the tongue
to be placed very near to the palate, and the
voice propelled with sufficient force to cause
rapid contact and separation, as in "around the
rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran their
rural race."
As there are no fewer than five different
sounds of the vowel A ; two of E ; three
of I ; three of O ; and two of U ; as heard
in the following words, far, mast, mare, fall,
mate ; get, me ; fire, fir, fin ; for, home, move ;
must, prude — besides their combinations in
diphthongal and triphthongal sounds — the
ARTICULATION. 25
manner in which sounds are multiplied will
be understood.
Consonants may be divided into three
classes. First, those which have no initiatory
sound whatever, as C, K, P, Q, T. Second,
those which have but a slight initiatory sound,
as B, D, F, G, J, S, V, Z. And, third, those
which have a palpable initiatory sound, as
L, M, N. In fact, L, M, N have sounds quite
as plain as the vowels.
Stammerers find the most difficulty with
words beginning with the first class, less with
those of the second class, and least with those
of the third class of letters. What I mean by
the initiatory sound is that which immediately
precedes articulation of any consonantal sound.
The initiatory sound of L is produced by the
tip of the tongue being placed in contact with
the palate, close to the upper teeth, while the
sound is allowed to pass over the tongue and
out laterally by the teeth. This sound can be
made with the nostrils closed. M and N can-
26 STAMMERING.
not be articulated with the nostrils closed;
thus they are called nasal.
The initiatory sound in the second class letters
is varied in each of them, and may be under-
stood by placing the articulative organs in their
right position for the letter which begins a word,
and endeavouring to articulate that word with-
out allowing them to move. In B, D, G, J a
stifled sound will be produced ; and in F, S, V,
Z a kind of hissing sound will be made ; while
in the first class, when the organs are placed
in right contact for a word, no possible sound
can be uttered in trying to say that word so
long as the organs are not separated,
To make enunciation perfect, a light trippant
action of the tongue and lower lip, and a free
downward, almost involuntary, action of the
lower jaw, are necessary. There must be no
hard pressure at the time of contact, but every
articulation must be made entirely without
effort. Where this is not observed, an impeded
articulation will ensue.
A WARNING. 27
Defective articulation is frequently the result
of imperfect physical formation, such as hare-
lip, cleft palate, undeveloped jaws, too large
tongue, or defective growth of the teeth.
Stammering rarely, if ever, proceeds from such
cases, although it may accompany them.
In some of the cases just mentioned the aid
of the surgeon may be necessary, but in cases of
stammering the knife should never be used.
Many unfortunates have had bitterly to deplore
the result of a surgical operation for the cure
of stammering, when they have found to their
cost that their condition has been made
infinitely worse than it was before.
Thanks to the intelligence of the present age,
few surgeons could now be found who would
countenance operations for stammering.
Chapter IV.
Active Causes of Stammering.
In our opening chapter an attempt has been
made to explain the underlying cause — the
primary cause — of the affliction, and it is
there pointed out that scientists have been
quite unable to trace the impediment to any
defect in the organs of speech.
My own experience fully confirms this,
because during my intercourse with hundreds
of stammerers I have never met with one
whose impediment was so caused ; and on the
other hand I have witnessed it in its greatest
intensity where there has been the most
perfect physical organisation, mental vigour
and capacity, strength of will, force of charac-
ter and abundance of health — in fact, where
there has been every qualification necessary
for the perfect outward man.
IMPOSSIBLE METHODS. 29
But in addition to the great underlying cause
there are four principal active causes. First,
not opening the glottis so as to produce sound ;
second, not allowing the lower jaw to have free
play ; third, pressing the lips tightly together ;
and fourth (a habit most difficult to get rid of),
pressing the tongue tightly against the teeth
or gums. In other words, stammering is
caused by trying to speak in an impossible
manner.
Let anyone try to articulate a word begin-
ning with one of the letters B, P, or M without
separating the lips ; or one beginning with
either C, G, J, K, or Q without separating the
tongue from the palate ; or words beginning
with the letters F or V without separating the
lower lip from the upper teeth, and he will find
his efforts are vain.
In explaining their cause, it may be as well
to state what I mean by stammering as
distinguished from stuttering. Stammering is
an inability to articulate sentences, words,
3 o STAMMERING.
or parts of words, and may occur in any part of
a sentence, in any part of a word, or at the
beginning of a word. Stuttering is a rapid
repetition of the initial or beginning part of a
word, and a difficulty or inability to finish it.
Stammering is not confined to any letters
or words ; but words beginning with conso-
nants present the greatest difficulties,especially
with double or treble consonants,such as bl, br,
ch, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pi, pr, sc, sh, sk, si,
sm, sp, sq, st, sw, th, scr, shr, spr, and str.
As, however, the two forms are so nearly
allied to each other, when I speak of stammer-
ing my remarks will generally apply to
stuttering also. Nervousness exercises a very
predominant influence over stammerers, but
it is not, as many suppose, the cause of stam-
mering. Stammering is the cause of nervous-
ness. If a cure be effected, all nervousness
w disappear. Besides, it cannot be traced in
its earlier stages to nervousness, as children are
seldom nervous, and it is generally during
ACTIVE CAUSES. 31
the period of childhood that the affliction
has its origin. Even those who have been
troubled with an impediment for many years
are often found to be anything but nervous,
except in regard to their misfortune.
There are many causes which first conduce
to stammering, the diseases incidental to child-
hood being the principal, such as measles,
scarlatina, whooping-cough, low fever, or any
thing which reduces the physical condition.
Sometimes it is acquired by imitation. As a
general rule it commences when children are
between the ages of four and twelve years, and
usually makes its appearance after recovery
from some child-ailment. At first it is only
slight, but does not take long to develop itself,
and is often aggravated by the injudicious
treatment of those having charge of children.
The temperament of children who acquire
the habit are of two kinds — either highly
excitable and vivacious, or secretive and
ruminative — and the form it will take will be
32 STAMMERING.
different. As a rule the excitable child will
both stutter and stammer, while the quiet one
will stammer only.
It is erroneous to suppose that stammering
is confined to consonantal formations ; no
doubt consonants present the greatest diffi-
culty to stammerers, but they also stam-
mer at vowels. The most easy of all the vowel
sounds is a, pronounced as in la of the Italian
method of sol-fa-ing in music. This is formed
with the whole of the active organs entirely
at rest, and requires, when the organs are in
the right position, only the propulsion of the
breath to cause the vocal chords to vibrate
and produce the sound ; and yet the stammerer
often finds difficulty with this formation,
owing to lack of control over his glottis, or
the adoption of an impossible method of
articulation.
The absurd notion, which once had a few
disciples, that stammering is a disease, has
nearly become obsolete ; although there may
NOT A DISEASE. 33
be some few who still entertain the idea that
it comes within the province of the physician,
and will succumb to medical treatment.
To characterise as a disease an improper use
of the lips, tongue, breath, and lower jaw
seems quite as ridiculous as if speaking un-
grammatically or biting one's nails were so
called. Stammering is an affliction of highly
complex origin, in which neither disease nor
physical deformity has any part or share.
Chapter V.
Forms of Stammering.
The phenomena of stammering are unaccount-
ably numerous and variable in form. Re-
markable as the statement may appear, it is
perhaps not too much to say that no two
victims of the affliction stammer alike. The
bad habits into which the lack of co-ordination
in the mechanism of speech has driven the
stammerer differ in every individual case ;
therefore individual treatment is essential.
Many cases that have come under my own
observation, either at Brampton Park or
Brondesbury, could be quoted in proof of this ;
and it may not be amiss to refer to a few of
them. One gentleman, who finally came to
me as a pupil and went away cured of his
impediment,was often several minutes, making
great efforts all the time, before he could utter
a sound. When at last the sound came ten
CHARACTERISTICS. 35
or twelve words would be uttered with in-
articulate rapidity until his breath was utterly
spent, whereupon he would be as long in trying
to begin again. On one occasion, being asked
a question by a friend with whom he was
walking, he walked several hundred yards
before replying, and when he did so the delay
had been so long that his friend had forgotten
what he had asked.
Another remarkable case, laughter-provok-
ing were it not so heartrendingly piteous, was
that of a young lady who, in her endeavours
to speak, frequently gave herself violent kicks,
and had carried this so far, on her own telling,
that on one or two occasions when out walking-
she had kicked or tripped herself into the
gutter.
These are extreme cases, but nearly all
stammerers distort their faces when attempt-
ing to speak, and hundreds get hold of bad
mechanical habits ; tapping with hand or foot
or arm at every word, or adopting other
36 STAMMERING.
methods which they have been told may help
them in their difficulty.
The majority of stammerers find great
difficulty in travelling, the little window
in the booking office of a railway station pre-
senting a terrible ordeal, especially when other
travellers are awaiting their turn and the
stammerer becomes nervous lest he should keep
them too long ; while the giving of instructions
to taxi or cab drivers, and the inquiring of one's
way, often presents almost unsurmountable
difficulties. Many on this account never
travel alone, unless compelled by force of cir-
cumstances ; and it is no uncommon thing for
boys who stammer to get their companions
to execute commissions for them where speech
is necessary. Entering a shop to ask for
commodities is always an ordeal which every
stammerer shirks on all possible occasions.
Nor are these the only anomalies of the
affliction. Some who are able to speak fairly
to equals and superiors utterly fail to make
CHARACTERISTICS. 37
themselves intelligible when speaking to ser-
vants. Usually the contrary is the case ; but
with stammerers there is no common ground
except the obvious one that every stammerer
stammers. The majority can at least
speak passably in the family circle, and
not at all in public. But at the present
moment there is in the House of Lords an
elderly nobleman who frequently inaugurates
debates and enters into discussion with perfect
fluency, while in private conversation he
stammers rather badly ; and in a northern
town the recent holder of the office of Mayor
was a gentleman who, as a major in the
volunteer force, and as a public speaker, was
perfectly free of speech, while in private con-
versation he still hesitates, stammers, and
occasionally relapses into silence because of
his infirmity.
Opposite circumstances in other ways also
have distinct effects. Some stammerers can
speak with comparative fluency when con-
38 STAMMERING.
versing with strangers, but amongst their own
friends experience considerable difficulty; while
others find their troubles begin immediately
they talk to anyone with whom they are
unacquainted.
Stammerers are also greatly influenced by
the manner of the persons to whom they are
speaking. For instance, if they enter into
conversation with anyone who shows im-
patience or watches them very acutely, the
result is that they get more confused, and
ultimately come to utter grief. Sometimes,
on the other hand, sympathy, by way of kind
looks and words of help or encouragement, has
the opposite effect to that for which it is
meant, and makes the stammerer worse than
he would be if no notice were taken of him.
It would take volumes to enumerate all
these differences, and, therefore, only one or
two more must suffice. It is very common for
a stammerer to speak and read perfectly when
alone, and to break down immediately anyone
CHARACTERISTICS. 39
comes into his presence ; or he may be talking
to one person, with little or no hesitation,
and be rendered completely dumb by the
appearance of another auditor. It is no easy
matter for a stammerer to speak through a tele-
phone or through a tube, as the knowledge that
someone is listening at the other end is quite
sufficient to upset him ; while there are other
stammerers who can use the telephone quite
freely, and yet be almost dumb when they
meet face to face the person to whom they have
spoken. It is often very trying to a stammerer
to have to give his own name, or to be called
upon to repeat anything he may have said,
even though he had spoken it just before with
perfect freedom.
Boys sometimes lose their impediment while
at play, in their excitement altogether
forgetting their infirmity ; but immediately
they are summoned to quieter work again,
or simply accosted by anyone out of their
play, will at once begin to stammer.
Chapter VI.
Stammering v. Natural Methods
of Speech.
Whatever may be the primary cause of
stammering — and many volumes have been,
and further volumes might be, written upon
the subject without getting any nearer the
truth— the active cause is evidently an attempt
to speak in an impossible manner. In the
invention of such impossible methods each
stammerer is an adept.
Efforts to speak with clenched teeth, with
tongue hard pressed against the gums orro of
of the mouth, with rigid jaw, with pursed or
protruded lips or other facial contortions, are
habits which every stammerer adopts in turn
A CONTRAST. 41
with equally disastrous results. Trick after
trick is acquired, made use of, cast aside, and
some new contortion adopted.
One by one the whole of the letters in the
alphabet in turn prove stumbling blocks.
M's, B's, P's, T's, D's present special diffi-
culties, but a stammerer will frequently over-
come these only to fall a victim to some other
letter, consonant, or vowel, in regard to which
there ought to be no difficulty at all, and will
go to the extreme lengths in physical effort
to frame or force the word, the initial letter of
which is the particular bete noir of the moment.
The ordinary man speaks without effort at
all. His lower jaw is loose, his tongue and
cheeks and lips are free and flexible, and his
words flow easily and without exertion.
What the Beasley system teaches is the
right, the natural, method of speech.
To this end three things are essential.
That the stammerer be in good health, that he
realises the necessity for both mental and
42 STAMMERING.
physical repose, and that he has faith in
himself.
There is an old proverb which tells us
that if money be lost naught is lost, if honour
be lost much is lost, but that if courage be lost
all is lost. It is undoubtedly so with the stam-
merer. If he loses courage and makes no
effort to regain it, his case is hopeless.
But no stammerer with a spark of grit in his
composition would permit himself to get into
such a condition, and if he did, the sight of a
class of stammerers — young, middle-aged and
elderly, including some, maybe, who have
been much worse than himself — would surely
help him to regain it, and would show him that
if he is willing to try, and is ready to keep a
watch on himself, and to endeavour to speak
"on rule" — that is, according to the methods
of the Beasley system — his perfect cure is a
matter of certainty.
First, then, the stammerer is taught to school
himself to mental calm, to make no effort to
REPOSE NECESSARY. 43
speak until he feels in perfect mental and
physical repose, and then, as Kingsley so aptly
put it, to " speak calmly, with self-respect, as
a man who does not talk at random, and has
a right to a courteous answer."
Secondly, it is pointed out to him how utterly
foreign to free speech is all effort, and how
impossible it is for him to speak with clenched
teeth, rigid jaw, or strained cheek and lips.
The mechanism of speech permits of no such
hard running ; it should work smoothly and
softly, and, in a cultivated speaker, run like
a well-oiled machine.
Indeed, that to exert effort is to create
impediment every stammerer who has suf-
fered from accident or serious illness can, on
reflection, convince himself ; for when utterly
exhausted from loss of blood or sickness, and
thus rendered incapable of effort, he will have
found himself speaking much more freely than
when in perfect health he has tried to force the
utterance he desired.
44 STAMMERING.
The Beasley system is designed to help
stammerers to " learn again the art of speak-
ing " and to adopt only natural methods—
to unlearn the bad habit of years, to discrimin-
ate between the impossible method and the
possible, and so learn to speak naturally as
men should.
The pity is that stammerers cannot be taught
by printed instructions or correspondence.
Each has his own peculiarities, and therefore
requires to be dealt with individually.
But more than that, he needs oral demon-
stration. In one oral and vocal lesson more
can be taught than by days of reading and
nights of study.
Indeed, the habit of speaking wrongly has be-
come so much a part of the stammerer's nature
that he is liable to wrongly interpret any in-
struction given in printed folio or written letter,
and when he attempts to put into practice in
every-day life the lessons he has learned or
attempted to learn in his chamber, he will, in
TREATMENT. 45
nine cases out of ten, find himself worse than
when he attempted to speak before ever the
lesson was scanned.
Moreover, the highly sensitive stammerer,
without the stimulus of seeing the progress
made by others who have been every whit as bad
as he is, would find himself lacking the courage
and self-control necessary to success. Con-
tact with teachers and pupils whose cure seems
assured gives encouragement and engenders
such hope and confidence that one may count
the battle already half won.
The meeting together in class helps also to
break through the reserve with which the
stammering boy and girl so often surround
themselves, and encourages the sang froid
that is an essential part of the cure.
The sensitive girl needs other treatment —
kindly mothering, a gradual introduction to
class, and freedom from vocal exercises even
among those similarly affected until she has
gained sufficient courage to attempt it herself
46 STAMMERING.
without prompting. In a little time, being
talked to without answer expected, she learns
to forget her impediment ; begins to make
attempts to speak ; is reassured by the fact
that no one apparently takes notice of her
failures ; and so gains such confidence that
lessons may be begun with every hope of
success.
In brief, the system is a kindly, patient,
watchful system of teaching the stammerer
the true art of speaking ; and because it is a
natural system, built up by one who himself
stammered, it contains such elements of
success as cannot fail the pupil who is in
earnest concerning his future welfare.
Chapter VII.
The Stammerer at School.
In a previous chapter passing allusion has been
made to the painful position, so far as the care-
less conduct of their fellow pupils is concerned,
of the boy who is a stammerer — and it is safe
to say that no greater act of cruelty can be
inflicted on such a lad than to send him
to a large public school without first
attempting the amelioration of his difficulties.
It is kinder to send him to a private coach,
where the boy can have individual attention,
and it is infinitely kinder to the boy and
much more thoughtful of his future to send
him to an establishment like my own, where his
education can be carried on in a thoroughly
efficient maimer during the time that he is
being treated for his impediment.
48 STAMMERING.
In a large public school he has no opportunity
of oral examination ; at Tarrangower exam-
ination in class is one of the chief features of
the curriculum, so that the boy (or girl) is not
only obtaining scholastic tuition, but such
tuition is itself made a vehicle for instruction
in the art of speaking.
Boys at a large school who stammer are
heavily handicapped, and their lives made
unbearable by the thoughtless or wanton
behaviour of their companions. In every
school boys will be found who take a delight
in laughing at the affliction of others, and
stammering seems to afford them special
opportunities for ridicule and offensive
imitation.
I have seen boys worked into ungovernable
passion through such heartless behaviour, and
others of a different temperament so hurt as
to be almost broken-hearted. That boys so
treated should have a distaste amounting to
hatred of school is no matter of surprise, nor
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SCHOOL HANDICAPS. 49
can it be wondered at that many an amiable
lad has had his temper spoiled and his dis-
position ruined under such conditions.
Parents are often utterly ignorant of the
existence of such a condition of things, or of
the suffering to which their child is subjected,
because the boy of the right mettle is
unwilling to " peach " or complain.
And not only is the stammering boy's social
life made miserable, but his scholastic career
is impeded, for at every turn his difficulty of
speech blocks the way. He is often at the
bottom of his class, not because he does not
know his lessons, but because of his inability
to say them, a condition which becomes
terribly galling, and not unfrequently has the
effect of making him careless and causing him
to lose all ambition to excel — all interest in
studies, which, work he never so laboriously,
secure for him no recognition.
If he be of an indolent nature, he can easily
shirk his work, well knowing that his hesitation
50 STAMMERING.
will cause him to be ignored. Many a stam-
mering boy has been given credit for knowing
his work when he has not ; and many another
has been considered a dullard, although perfect
in every line. Tutors cannot be blamed
for passing such boys, as the work of the
whole class cannot be delayed by waiting
for one, though no excuse can possibly
be offered for those who show impatience
or lose their tempers, which, unfortunately,
some do with stammering boys.
Having regard to these various considera-
tions, I employ efficient tutors, so that a boy's
education may be either commenced or car-
ried on or completed, or, if desired, he may be
prepared for university matriculation or
degrees.
" The pen " may, it is true, " be mightier
than the sword," but the art of speech is
beyond all doubt the greatest human power.
Is it not, then, an amazing fact that not only
is this great power absolutely uncultivated at
SCHOOL HANDICAPS. 51
the majority of schools, but that in most of
them bad habits of speech are positively in-
duced by the present system of cramming and
high pressure ? Those children who show more
than average intelligence and aptitude are
pushed forward and overworked in order that
theymay be made examples of the proficiency
of this or that scholastic establishment, to the
lifelong injury of the little pupil.
Legislation, which forbids the bodily over-
working of children, might well interfere to
save this abuse of their mental powers. The
theory of many eminent physicians that the
great increase in stammering at the present
day is due to these causes is no doubt correct,
since it is invariably the quick, intelligent,
highly strung and nervous boy, and not the slow
or dull subject, who falls the readiest victim.
How then can the extraordinary apathy of
parents in regard to stammering children be
accounted for? They have probably con-
sulted the family doctor, and, as has been
52 STAMMERING.
intimated in a previous chapter, are only too
ready to accept his comforting formula that
the " boy will grow out of it." I do not say
that all medical men treat the matter in this
cavalier-like manner — far from it. Many are
fully alive to the vast growth and to the
terrible significance to the individual of the
imperfection ; but, unfortunately, there are
others who do not like to admit their ignorance
of a subject which in truth does not come
within the province of their profession, and
therefore dismiss it in this off-hand and
reprehensible manner.
If any proof of the fallacy of their theory be
needed, it is to be found in the thousands of
stammerers of mature age who have lived and
live now to reproach their parents for neglect
of an ever-present trouble which might easily
have been eradicated during their education.
With the increase of population competition
for the different professions becomes keener,
and it is not to be wondered at that the author-
ITS CURE. 53
ities are growing correspondingly stricter,
and are refusing to pass candidates whose
speech-education has been neglected.
Therefore the coaches and tutors engaged
in connection with the educational facilities
offered at Tarrangower are specially chosen
and instructed as to their treatment of the
pupils, whose difficulties of speech are made
the special care of the principals.
Chapter VIII.
The Beasley v. Other Systems.
The great advantage of the Beasley system,
and the one which gives it a pre-eminent
claim to attention over all others, is that it was
evolved by a gentleman who himself stammered
for five and thirty years, who had tried other
systems without result, and who, feeling with
increased intensity as the years passed the
seriousness of the handicap under which he
laboured, determined to put all else aside and
wrestle with his infirmity to a finish. His
determination had its reward. Inventing new
vocal exercises and new expedients, un-
wearyingly analysing his every emotion, he
continued casting about for a cure until a
chance intonation in a vocal exercise gave him
a hint, the full force of which, when he came
DIFFICULTIES. 55
to study the matter, flashed upon him like an
inspired revelation. On that hint and inspira-
tion he laboriously constructed his system and
cured himself, to the wonderment of business
acquaintances and the surprise and delight of
his friends.
Of no other system can the same be said.
Others may have been evolved as the result
of much sympathetic study of stammerers, by
question and cross question and observation ;
but it is safe to say that no one except a
stammerer who has been taught by personal
experience and cruel suffering can enter into
the emotions, the difficulties, and the terrors
that the stammerer has to suffer and combat,
or fully realise the essential cause of the afflic-
tion , And to attempt to cure stammering
without sympathetic understanding of the root
cause, without full knowledge of the fact that
nervousness is both cause and effect, is to
aggravate the affliction and condemn the
sufferer to almost hopeless doom. Buoyed up
56 STAMMERING.
for a time by promises made to the ear, the
sufferer, when he finds they are broken to the
hope, is flung into fathomless depths of des-
pondency, which, reacting on his nervous
system, intensifies his impediment, and, to his
mental vision, darkens the whole abyss of his
future.
Because stammering, unlike most other
afflictions, feeds upon itself and contributes to
its own intensification. Even as a child the
stammerer becomes sensitive, and that sensi-
tiveness reacts upon and further interferes with
harmonious co-ordination of the mechanism of
speech. As the stammerer grows older, and
his sensitiveness increases, the nervous system
becomes less resistant under the everlasting
strain — the dread of speech and the ordeals of
everyday life — and, as year by year passes,
phase after phase of nervousness occurs,
until self-conscious, introspective, made more
morbid by the dumb devil of his halting tongue
than the dumb man is by the affliction which
FALSE MOVES. 57
from the first he knows to be hopeless, the
stammerer withdraws himself from his fellow
men on every possible occasion, and so makes
worse his affliction and increases the misery of
his life.
By Mr. Beasley — who had himself sustained
heavy business losses because of his inability
to present his views plainly to those with
whom he was dealing, and had suffered for
thirty years all the mental agonies of the
stammerer — this phase of the affliction was
fully realised. In the workshop he had with-
drawn from management because of the diffi-
culty of giving clear instructions to the men ;
in the office he had withdrawn from all
speaking parts from the same overwhelming
sensitiveness, though knowing that in hundreds
of business transactions he could have done
infinitely better than those on whom the duty
fell ; and when at last he let all else go in order
that he might know and study and cure him-
self, he found that these withdrawals of his
58 STAMMERING.
had been among the errors that added to his
infirmity, and realised that the building up
of the nervous system, and the putting aside
of the dread of association with other people,
were two essentials necessary to success in
overcoming the difficulties of his impediment.
In this his teaching is diametrically
opposed to those whose instruction con-
sists in insisting upon lengthened periods
of silence, to be broken only in class or to the
instructor, or in that much more insidious
teaching which relies on hypnotic suggestion
for the cure. In the one case the mechanism
of speech — to secure the harmonious working
of which every effort should be made — is left
idle instead of being usefully exercised ; in
the other the will power is being sapped, the
nervous system weakened day by day, until the
patient becomes but the puppet and the
creature of the operator — the automaton,
robbed of individuality and will power, in the
hands of the strong man.
A CONTRAST. 59
It is not the sapping of individuality, of ner-
vous force, of will power, that is necessary in
the cure of the stammerer, but the contrary.
By hypnotic suggestion temporary good may
possibly be secured ; but at what price ? The
abnegation of will and individual conscience,
the enslavement of the sub-conscious self by
another, the absolute surrender of the patient to
the professor. Who that has dabbled with hyp-
notism or mesmerism at all has failed to note
the class of persons that most easily come under
the power of the hypnotist ? Weak, anaemic,
inanimate, feeble creatures in physique, or
if not this, then mentally dull, they represent
the precise opposite of the ideal man or
woman, and it were a sin against high Heaven
to so sap the mental or physical health of
even the most inveterate stammerer to effect
what can at best be but a temporary cure of
his one affliction at so great a cost in every
other direction.
The Beasley system is founded on the
60 STAMMERING.
opposite view. A sound mind in a sound
body are its first essentials. In Mr. Beasley's
case nothing so much as a robust, healthy,
self-reliant spirit helped to bring about his
cure ; and one of the first lessons his system
teaches is that no one can cure a stammerer
but himself. Once the subject realises this,
and decides to profit by the instruction
given, his cure is assured. Robbed of
such self-confidence as he may possess by
surrender of his will power to another,
the last state of the patient, once the
controlling personality of his preceptor is
withdrawn, must surely be worse than the
first.
In both systems it will be seen suggestion
plays its part. In the Beasley system it
is conscience suggestion — the suggestion of
living mind to living mind, encouragement,
the suggestion of hope, belief in one's self,
certainty of ability to talk as other men if
one but for a little while exercises patience,
A CONTRAST. 61
keeps on one's guard, speaks according to the
rules laid down for him, and lives in the con-
fident hope of the future. In the other case
it is the suggestion of the vital mind that has
been subdued, brought under control, and, as
it were, harnessed in servile chains. What
greater contrast could be drawn ? What
stronger.condemnation marshalled in evidence ?
In no set phrase or polished paragraph can
the Beasley system be better described than
in the noble words of Charles Kingsley —
himself a victim of the affliction — who said : —
" Let. him (the stammerer) learn again the
art of speaking, and having learned, think
before he speaks, and say his say calmly, with
self-respect, as a man who does not talk at
random and has a right to a courteous answer.
Let him fix in his mind that there is nothing
on earth to be ashamed of save doing wrong,
and no being to be feared save Almighty God,
and go on making the best of the body and
soul which heaven has given him, and I will
62 STAMMERING.
warrant that in a few months his old misery
of stammering will lie behind him as an ugly
and all but impossible dream when one awakes
in the morning/ '
This is the Beasley system ; it teaches the
art of speaking, it induces self-respect, calm-
ness, self-confidence, and, where the patient
himself is in earnest, it secures to him that free-
dom of speech which is to the stammerer
above and beyond the gifts or the praises of
Kings.
Chapter IX.
Advice to my Pupils.
In conclusion, I cannot give better advice to
my pupils than that contained in this extract
from an article by the late Charles Kingsley in
Fraser's Magazine. They already know my
system ; let them supplement it by the follow-
ing advice : —
" Stammerers need above all men to keep
up that mentem sanam in cor pore sano, which
is nowadays called somewhat offensively mus-
cular Christianity — a term worthy of a puling
and enervated generation of thinkers who
prove their own unhealthiness by their con-
64 STAMMERING.
temptuous surprise at any praise of that health
which ought to be the normal condition of
the whole human race.
" But whosoever can afford an enervated
body and an abject character, the stammerer
cannot. With him it is a question of life and
death. He must make a man of himself, or
be liable to his tormentor to the last.
" Let him, therefore, eschew all base per-
turbations of mind ; all cowardice, servility,
meanness, vanity, and hankering after admira-
tion ; for these all will make many a man, by
a just judgment, stammer on the spot. Let
him, for the same reason, eschew all anger,
peevishness, haste, or even pardonable eager-
ness. In a word, let him eschew the root of
all evil — selfishness and self-seeking ; for he
will surely find that whosoever begins
thinking about himself, there is the dumb
devil of stammering at his elbow. Let him
eschew, too, all superstition, whether of that
abject kind which fancies that it can please
THE SOUND BODY. 65
God by a starved body and a hang-dog visage,
which pretends to be afraid to look mankind
in the face, or of that more openly self-con-
ceited kind which upsets the balance of the
reason by hysterical raptures and self-glorifying
assumptions. Let him eschew, lastly, all which
can weaken either nerves or digestion ; all
intemperance in drink or in food, whether
gross or effeminate, remembering that it is
as easy to be unwholesomely gluttonous over
hot slops and cold ices as over beef and beer.
" Let him avoid those same hot slops (to
go on with the corpus sanum), and all else
which will injure his wind and his digestion,
and let him betake himself to all manly exer-
cises which will put him into wind, and keep
him in it. Let him, if hecan, ride, andridehard,
remembering that (so does horse exercise expand
the lungs and oxygenate the blood) there has
been at least one frightful stammerer ere now
who spoke perfectly plain as long as he was in
the saddle.
66 STAMMERING.
" Let him play rackets and fives, row,
and box ; for all these amusements strengthen
those muscles of the chest and abdomen which
are certain to be in his case weak. Above all,
let him box ; for so will ' the noble art of self-
defence ' become to him over and above a
healing art.
" If he doubt this assertion, let him
(or, indeed, any narrow chested porer over
desks) hit out right and left for five minutes
at a point on the wall as high as his own face
(hitting, of course, not from the elbow like a
woman, but from the loin, like a man, and
keeping his breath during the exercise as long
as he can), and he will soon become aware
of his weak point by a severe pain in the epi-
gastric region in the same spot which pains him
after a convulsion of stammering. Then let
him try boxing regularly, daily, and he will
find that it teaches him to look a man, not
merely in the face, but in the very eye's core ;
to keep his chest expanded, his lungs full of
THE SOUND BODY. 67
air : to be calm and steady under excitement ;
and, lastly, to use all those muscles of the torso
on which deep and healthy respiration depend.
" And let him now, in these very days, join a
rifle club, and learn in it to carry himself with
the erect and noble port which is all but
peculiar to the soldier, but ought to be the
common habit of every man ! Let him learn
to march ; and more, to trot under arms
without losing breath ; and by such means
make himself an active, healthy, and valiant
man."
Thus, physically fit, the stammerer is able to
tackle his infirmity under fair conditions.
His body and mind vigorous and clear he can
fight the enemy that has so long oppressed
him, with every prospect of success, and if he is
really in earnest, will come out the victor and
no longer suffer the numbing restraints which
Martin Tupper, the poetic theologian and
philosopher, himself a stammerer, so well
described when he wrote : —
68 STAMMERING.
" Come, I will show thee an affliction unnumbered among the world's
sorrows,
Yet real and wearisome and constant, embittering the cup of life.
There be whom think within themselves, and the fire burneth at
their heart,
And eloquence waiteth at their lips, yet they speak not with their
tongue ;
There be whom zeal quickeneth, or slander stirreth to reply,
Or need constraineth to ask, or pity sendeth as her messengers,
But nervous dread and sensitive shame freeze the current of their
speech ;
The mouth is sealed as with lead, a cold weight presses on the heart,
The mocking promise of power is once more broken in performance,
And they stand impotent of words, travailing with unborn thoughts,
Courage is cowed at the portal, wisdom is widowed of utterance :
He that went to comfort is pitied, he that should rebuke is silent.
And fools, who might listen and learn, stand by to look and laugh :
While friends, with kinder eyes, wound deeper by compassion :
And thought, finding not a vent, smouldereth gnawing at the heart,
And the man sinketh in his sphere for lack of empty sounds.
There may be cares and sorrows thou hast not yet considered,
And well may thy soul rejoice at the fair privilege of speech,
For at every turn to want a word — thou canst not guess that want :
It is as lack of breath or bread, life hath no grief more galling."
Chapter X.
A Product of Civilisation.
Since speech in its higher forms — in its
heights of eloquence, its powers of persuasion
for good or evil, its poetic flights, and its
brilliant word painting — is one of the most
obvious finished products of civilisation, it is
not surprising to learn that until they too
were brought under the influence of civilised
communities, stammering was unknown
among the aborigines of Central Africa, the
Indians of North America, and the bushmen
of Australia.
So far as Central Africa is concerned, it
is on record that Dr. Livingstone during the
long period he spent in the interior never once
saw a native who stammered, an observation
7 o STAMMERING.
which has been confirmed by Commander
Cameron, R.N., C.B., and by many other
African travellers, all of whom affirm that
where stammering does exist at all it is only
among natives who have been subjected more
or less to the enervating influences of civilised
life. Similar evidence is forthcoming in
regard to the Redmen of North America
and the degenerate blacks of the Australian
Continent. None have been known to
stammer unless and until they have been
touched by civilisation.
A curious feature about this fact is,
however, that the stammering among these
aborigines where it is manifest at all does
not arise from the greater complexities, the
wider range, or the vaster number of words
in the vocabulary of the civilised peoples
with whom they have come in contact
compared with the linguistic poverty of their
native tongue, but rather from the causes
that have played their part in the encourage-
A DOUBTFUL POINT.
7*
ment of the higher civilisation of which the
scientific and poetic vocabulary is the hall-
mark. In other words, there is little or no
language difficulty in the way of, or to
account for, the stammerer.
We use the word little in qualification of
the above remark, because it is just possible
that there may be some slight connection
between the two. In Spain and Italy, for
instance, stammerers are few ; and this, it
has been argued, may arise from the soft,
mellifluous, easy flow of the Latin tongue.
In Great Britain and its Colonies, Austria,
Germany, and North America, stammering is,
on the other hand, widespread, so that colour
may, perhaps, be given to the suggestion that
languages of Teutonic origin, in comparison
with the Latin, present greater difficulties to
those in whom already exists the obscure con-
genital defect to which the affliction is due, and
who are, therefore, predisposed to stammer.
The suggestion, however, is hard of belief
72 STAMMERING.
in view of the fact that in France, where the
language of the people also owes much to the
Latin tongue, stammering is quite as common
as in Great Britain — a fact which seems to
indicate that we must look elsewhere than to
the spoken language for the raison d'etre of
the stammerer.
The key to the situation is, perhaps, to
be found near home. In Ireland, we are
told on the authority of the late Sir William
Wilde, that stammering is much more
common in the north than in the south ;
and this fact, taken in conjunction with the
comparative immunity of Spain and Italy,
raises a further question, namely : Is stammer-
ing due in any great measure to the strenuous
character of modern industrial life ?
The north of Ireland is noted for its indus-
trial activity, while in the south the pastoral
habits of the people have much in common
with the every-day existence of the ease-
loving Spaniard and Italian. M (mafia !
VICTIMS OF INDUSTRIALISM. 73
Manafia I — To-morrow ! to-morrow ! — is as
much the ejaculation of the man of the south
of Ireland as it is of the Spaniard ; he
takes to-day for recreation ; to-morrow is
to be devoted to work and the fulfilment of
obligations. And to-morrow is often long in
coming.
In the great mills and workshops and ship-
yards of Belfast, however, as also in the
industrial districts of Lancashire and West
Yorkshire, the workshops of the Black
Country, and the factories of Birmingham,
there are no yesterdays and no to-morrows.
Life is just one perpetual Now, and the
rush and wear and tear of industrial strife
is responsible for the neurosis which pre-
disposes so many more people to stammering
— as also to other nervous ills — in these
particular districts than in the less strenuous
pastoral areas of the country. Indeed it is
noticeable that everywhere fewer country-
bred people stammer than town bred, because
74 STAMMERING.
as a rule they are brought up under more
natural conditions, and, where the parents are
connected with agricultural or other outdoor
pursuits, being slower in speech, and more
deliberate in action, their children learn to
speak slowly too.
Nor is this all. Civilisation carries with it
in the upbringing of children many other
factors predisposing to neurotic affections
when regarded in comparison with the lives of
children of savages or uncivilised races who
are brought up amid surroundings and con-
ditions of perfect freedom.
Some philosophic soul has said that " when
the monkey blushed man was born." Whether
this be true or not, it undoubtedly is true that
when man first blushed the stammerer came into
being. Blushing, nervous dread, hesitation, are
all steps towards stammering, and all are due
to the repressive influences of civilisation,
aggravated by the wear and tear of modern
life, with all its erotic and neurotic tendencies.
RESULT OF REPRESSION. 75
The child of the savage is brought up like a
healthy little animal, with all the facts of life
exposed to him, and knowing nothing what-
ever of the repressions which count so much
in the decencies and refinements of conduct
among civilised peoples. Were his skin fair
as that of the fairest Dane, he would recognise
naught in the crudities of life that would
bring even the faintest blush to his cheek, or
cause him the slightest personal concern.
How different, when compared with this,
is the every-day training of the child
brought up in a civilised environment. From
the very first day on which he can by word
of mouth make his wants known he is taught
to whisper of the most intimate things, to
disguise his real instincts, to ask for what he
wants as a privilege instead of taking it as a
right ; to be quiet and orderly, to learn
lessons instead of gambolling in the fields,
or indulging his animal spirits, or working off
his superfluous energy in games such as the
-o STAMMERING.
healthy young animal that he is would be
sure, under natural conditions, to engage in.
And so his animal spirits and vitality being
suppressed, kept in check, forced back upon
him, neurotic conditions are engendered. He
learns to be ashamed of his natural instincts ;
afraid of being told that he is greedy or selfish ;
timorous of giving offence by doing anything
which he has been told it is wrong to do ; and
so when any little contretemps occurs, he
blushes, feels ashamed of himself, becomes
neurotic and nervous ; hesitates in making
his wants known, blushes when asking favours,
and finally, where the temperament is especi-
ally highly strung, and the predisposing
causes exist, becomes a stammerer — a victim
of civilisation.
We are told that industrialism wears out
a family in three generations, and those who
know anything of our great industrial centres,
with their thousands of under-sized men and
women, will be the last to dispute this state-
THE CURE. 77
ment. If the conditions under which we live
thus destroy the physical frame, how much
more likely are they to play havoc with the
vastly finer and more sensitive nervous
system, and give rise to stammering as one
among the thousand sequelae that nervous-
ness carries in its train ?
Stammering is thus undoubtedly one of the
penalties that civilised people have to pay
for their luxuries and refinements ; and it rests
with those who realise this, as the writer does,
to shew that civilisation can come to the
rescue of its own victims, and restore them
to the full measure of the power of the
inheritance to which they were born.
Chapter XL
An Independent Witness.
A cloud of independent witnesses could be
summoned to bear testimony to the thorough-
ness of the system, but perhaps the following
reprint from Cassell's Magazine of a visit paid
by Mr. Raymond Blathwayt to headquarters
will suffice : —
The evening shadows were lengthening over
the broad swards and green lawns of Brampton
Park as I drove up the long entrance to the
beautiful old house, with its quaint gables and
elaborately carved chimneys outlined clear
against the red of the sunset sky. A flight of
water fowl winged their way to some distant
mere, the lowing of cows was in the air, and a
charming rural quietude greeted me, fresh
from the roar and bustle of Piccadilly Circus.
A PEN PORTRAIT. 7 g
My host, genial and sportsmanlike to his
finger tips, came forward to meet me, and I
caught a glimpse of some well-set-up young
fellows with guns upon their shoulders dis-
appearing in the direction of the stables. The
whole place breathed that atmosphere of sport
so delightful to the healthy, well-regulated
English gentleman ; " nothing scholastic,
nothing of the pedant here," I thought to
myself, as I entered the great hall, in which two
or three good-looking girls and a man or two
were knocking about billiard balls.
' We don't go in veiy much for the ordinary
scholastic life here," said Mr. Beasley, as we
sat down in his study and lit our cigars. r< I
like my young people of both sexes to feel that
they are at home. They are mostly of the
upper classes, and life here is very much what
it would be in any well-regulated English home,
with the addition of careful tuition. At the
same time the course of study here is very
strict, and the hours are fully as long as they
80 STAMMERING.
are at Eton or Harrow. Those young people
whom you saw enjoying themselves in the hall
just now have had a good hard day's work. I
have, too, a number of boys, all of them stam-
merers, who come here not only to be cured of
stammering, but also to go through exactly
the same course of study that they have to
undergo in any English public school.
" I like to catch the stammerer young,"
humorously continued Mr. Beasley, " although
stammering is a thing that can be cured at any
age. I am myself a remarkable instance of the
possibility of stammering — a fixed, lifelong
habit of stammering — being cured late in life,
for till I was forty years of age my existence
was rendered quite unbearable by this unfor-
tunate habit.
" It was an accidental discovery that enabled
me in one moment to set about curing myself,
and from that year to the present day I have
never stammered, either in private or upon the
platform, where I have been lecturing to
CLASSIC VICTIMS. 81
audiences all over the kingdom. But despite
my own case, I like to catch the stammerer
when he is young, and devote two or three
years to curing his habit. It is a curious fact
that, as a rule, stammerers are more intelligent
than those not so afflicted. I always hold
that it is because, being cut off to a certain
extent from conversation with their fellows,
they have more time to cultivate the habit of
thinking and reading, I have known — and,
indeed, I will give you an instance of it this
very evening — many boys from twelve to
fifteen years of age who, after having gained
the power of speech, have been able to give
addresses in a manner which w r ould do credit
to much older people. Demosthenes and St.
Paul, to mention two classic instances, were
great stammerers ; and to come down to
modern times, Charles Kingsley himself was
sadly afflicted in this way.
" I use the word ' sadly ' advisedly, for it
is a terrible curse to labour under. Martin
82 STAMMERING.
Tupper, who wrote from bitter experience,
called it ' an affliction unnumbered among the
world's sorrows, yet real and wearisome and
constant, embittering the cup of life, which hath
no grief more galling ! ' So that you will readily
understand how it is that, although I have
people here of all ages — country vicars, staid
elderly barristers, smart young cavalry officers
— yet I prefer to get them at the earliest pos-
sible age. For only thereby can I save them
vast misery, and often real practical incon-
venience.
" Let me give you some instances of the
truth of what I say. Some time ago a young
officer in a Hussar regiment came to me for
advice. He said, ' In a few months I expect
to get my troop. Well, if it only meant giving
orders, I could perhaps manage well enough.
You can shout out anything almost in a loud,
indistinct voice, as you know if you have seen a
regiment on parade. But a captain has many
other duties. What can a stammerer like
A GREAT GIFT. 83
myself do when he is sitting on a court-martial,
and the president asks him for his opinion on
the case ? What can he do when it is his turn
to preside at the mess table ? Why, I couldn't
even stand up and say ' The Queen ' when I
proposed the first toast. If I can't get cured
within the next few months, I must send in
my papers.' ' Don't you trouble/ I replied ;
1 I'll soon put you right. Come and stay here
a few weeks. ' He came and devoted himself to
my system. He got to his troop, and about a
year after he called in one afternoon to tell me
how he was getting on. ' Why, do you know,'
he said, ' that I often make long speeches in
public now, thanks to you ? But what I am
most deeply grateful to you for is for giving
me the best wife man ever had.' I thought he
had gone crazy. ' Given you a wife,' I said.
' What on earth do you mean ? ' ' Absolutely
what I say,' he replied. ' For years I had loved
a very charming girl, but I had never mustered
up sufficient courage to tell her so. Indeed, I
84 STAMMERING.
couldn't, for I knew I should never be able to
get the words out ; but, when I left you, I
went to her and quietly proposed, and was
immediately accepted. So I owe my wife as
well as my troop to you, and I can never thank
you enough/
" On another occasion a poor mechanic came
to me in great distress. ' I could do well
enough if I could get rid of my beastly stam-
mer/ said he ; ' but at present I feel a ruined
man.' ' Well/ said I, ' you come up here every
evening,and I'll see what I can do/ for although,
of course, he could not pay my fees, which are
necessarily rather high, I make a point of
giving at least one-tenth of my time to gratu-
itous helping of poor people. In a few weeks
he had completely and entirely lost his stam-
mer, which was of a peculiarly painful nature ;
and three months later he was made a foreman,
and is now doing prosperously for himself. I
could mention many other cases, but it is
always a special delight to me/' continued my
FAILURE ? 85
host, his face alight with pleasure, " to be able
to help poor people whose lives would other-
wise be ruined by their affliction."
" Do you never fail ?*" I asked.
" I consider that I never have failure when
there is a willingness and determination to
follow out my system ; only, if I am to help
them, they must help themselves. Some, of
course, do better than others, but I never meet
with absolute failure. At the same time I
never undertake a case where there is a
marked physical or mental deformation. My
endeavour is to help the really capable people
to overcome a habit, which, if not strenuously
fought and overcome, would ruin a man's life.
r< I know from my own personal experience
how a stammer can darken one's whole career.
Do you know that my stammer once cost me
£50,000 ? It is too long a story to tell you
now, but I once lost — to put it briefly — a big
Government contract for 100,000 Enfield
rifles, out of which I should have made the
86 STAMMERING.
sum I mentioned. But there's the dinner bell ;
and you must come and be introduced to my
wife and my pupils. For it is mainly due to
my dear wife that I have been so successful.
No one, not even myself, has benefited my
pupils so much in every respect as she has."
A little while after dinner — which was very
much like the festive meal at an ordinary big
country house — we all assembled in the music
room for the evening's entertainment.
The first item in the programme was a recita-
tion charmingly delivered by a young fellow
fresh from Eton. " Now, there," whispered
my host to me, " there is a young fellow who,
six weeks ago, could scarcely speak. He has
gone in for my system heart and soul, with the
result that he now speaks almost perfectly."
" Yes," I replied, " but what a splendid
elocutionist he is." " Ah ! that is part of my
system," answered Mr. Beasley. " I make a
point not only of curing the stammer, but also
of perfecting speech."
SELF-CONTROL. 87
Then a young man got up and gave us a
short, bright dissertation on dreams. He did
it admirably and humorously, standing upon
an elevated platform, Mr. Beasley himself
seated opposite him in the centre of the audi-
ence, gathered round him in a circle. " Slowly,
slowly," cried the master of the house. " Now,
Edwards," he continued, " remember what I
said this morning : ' keep cool and cultivate
repose.' You will think and speak the better
if you are perfectly at rest. You know," he
went on, as the young fellow came down from
the dais amidst much laughter and well-earned
applause, " you know that I consider self-
control to be the very basis of my system.
Repose in action I take to be somewhat of
the nature of the ' line of beauty,' as Hogarth
terms it, in painting and sculpture. In riding,
rowing, running, billiards, gymnastics — in fact,
in all action, the most perfect movements
should give an idea of repose. The same surely
with speech."
88 STAMMERING.
A little boy of twelve then gave an address
in a manner which rendered it difficult to
believe that only a few months before he had
come to Brampton Park unable even to
answer a question of the most simple nature,
and yet on the present occasion his articulation
was far more perfect than that of many public
speakers I have heard.
Mr. Beasley himself wound up the evening's
performances with a recitation from Tennyson,
and so charming was his elocution, and so
smooth and gliding and unhesitating his
delivery of the melodious lines, that I found it
impossible to believe that he was the self-same
man who, up to forty years of age, had been
absolutely incapable of conducting a brief
business interview, even when it dealt with a
matter which he had clearly and concisely
conceived in his own mind.
On the following morning Mr. Beasley took
me over the beeutiful house and wide-
spreading Park. The house itself is about 300
STUDIES. 89
years old, and belongs to the Duke of Man-
chester. It is situated about a mile and a half
from Huntingdon, and close to the River Ouse,
where good fishing and boating are easily
obtainable. There is everything that the heart
of Englishman can desire for the enjoyment
of a pleasant country life, and I remarked to
my host how much I envied the pupils such
a life.
'Yes/' he replied, "it is a delightful place,
but they have plenty of work to get through.
The younger boys have just the same hours
that they would have at any ordinary school ;
they are kept to themselves ; they have their
own rooms, so that both in as well as out of
doors they can play by themselves. Their
tutors are all Oxford and Cambridge men,
and are specially adapted for their peculiar
kind of work. After their own special morn-
ing studies the boys come to me or to my son
for instruction in relation to stammering. In
this class, which lasts for two hours, all my
go STAMMERING.
pupils, old and young, are present ; and here
they undergo a course of drilling in what may
be termed vocal gymnastics, and here they are
taught and made to carry out the system I
have devised, with abundant practice in con-
versation, reading, mock trials, and speech-
making, in the presence of the whole class.
"My son, and my son-in-law, Mr. W. J. Ketley,
who superintends my house in London, and
who have each studied and taught my system
for twenty years, are even more patient than
I am, and I feel that whenever I am obliged to
give the work up it will be carried on just as
effectually, if not indeed more so, as ever it
has been in my own time. Ah ! here is my
son," he continued, as a tall, fine-looking and
very athletic man rode up the beautiful cedar
drive, across which the morning sunshine
fell in great golden splashes. I was much
interested in my conversation with the younger
man. He is full of capital ideas in the carrying
out of his work.
A TRYING ORDEAL. 91
" I remember once," said he, " we had a
young fellow who was going up for Sandhurst.
He was in great funk of his viva-voce exam.,
because he felt sure he would stammer. One
morning, when he was bemoaning his possible
fate, I said, ' Leave the room, Roberts, and
when you return in five minutes you'll find a
board of examiners, who will put you through
your facings/ Whilst he was gone my father
and I and one of the tutors prepared the table
as an examination table, took our seats in
great ceremony, and Roberts was ushered in.
We received him brusquely, put him through
his work very sharply, behaved exactly as
though we had never seen him before, and he
passed with flying colours. The following week
he went through his real exam., and wrote us
that he had given satisfaction in every par-
ticular, specially in his viva-voce exam.
" Some pupils you must treat very firmly,
others with the greatest consideration and
tenderness. It all depends upon their special
92 STAMMERING.
form of stammering." At this moment a young
lady came up to Mr. Beasley and began to
speak to him very quickly and, consequently,
with a very considerable stammer. " Now,
my dear young lady, keep cool, and speak
slowly, as I told you last night."
When she had gone, I commented upon the
real wisdom, as it has always appeared to me,
of not pretending to ignore a person's stammer.
" Quite so," replied Mr. Beasley ; " one of my
great difficulties is to drive it into the heads
of my pupils that stammering is a thing not
to be ashamed of, any more than is a broken
leg or arm. People should always take it as
a matter of course." " And don't you think
it's a kindness to help a stammerer now and
again with a word or two ? " I asked, as we
entered the great class-room, where the pupils
were all assembled awaiting our entry. " It
all depends upon the stammerer," replied Mr.
Beasley ; " but put your question to the
ladies and gentlemen you see before you."
VOCAL GYMNASTICS. 93
I did so, and they all replied that they would
infinitely prefer to be so helped.
I was keenly interested in the exercise
which followed. It was a thorough course of
vocal gymnastics. I cannot divulge the
system — it would not be fair to Mr. Beasley,
although, as a matter of fact, it would be
impossible for any outsider, not thoroughly
acquainted with the inner meaning of the
system, to attempt to teach it.
Several of the pupils stammered painfully.
Mr. Beasley always took them easily and
coolly. " Abandon yourself to being perfectly
at rest," said he. " Every time you allow
yourselves to stammer you are practising
stammering. You can do yourself more harm
in five minutes than you can do yourself good
in an hour of class work. Speak slowly, but
you must learn how to speak slowly, otherwise
slow speech may only increase your stammer.
Never let anyone attempt to hurry you. Be
stubbornly cool. Many of you have the idea
94 STAMMERING.
that it seems peculiar to speak slowly, and that
people are tired of it. You may take my word
for it that they are twenty times more tired
of hearing you stammer. Take people into
your confidence ; you can't hide stammering ;
don't be ashamed of it, and they will sym-
pathise with you, you may be sure."
I was very much interested in an exercise
book, which was used in the class, in which
the whole of the elementary formations of
the English language are embodied in one
chapter, so that every day the pupils are put
through a thorough course, scientifically
adapted to help them to overcome their
unfortunate affliction.
" What I cannot understand," said my
host, as we returned to the library, " is the
extraordinary apathy of parents concerning
this habit in their children. With very young
children, kindness and gentleness, and an
apparent unconsciousness of their impediment,
are the only treatments. Try to keep them
ELOCUTION. 95
unconscious of their difficulty, and endeavour
to cure them without their knowing it ; but
should this treatment not succeed, no time
should be lost in obtaining the best possible
advice."
" Well, Mr. Beasley," I said, " suppose you
had a son who stammered, what would you do
with him ? " " I would make a barrister of
him," he unhesitatingly replied. " If he had
ability, as almost all stammerers have, I
would let him follow an occupation where he
must talk. I will engage to make any boy able
to stand up and read in his class better than
any boy of his own age, and, indeed, better
than most grown-up people.
" Remember this, that the study and practice
of elocution will materially help the stammerer,
but, before he can practise it, he must learn
how to use and exercise his vocal organs, other-
wise his study of elocution will benefit him
but little ; and he will not know how to open
his mouth and read blank verse. Although he
96 STAMMERING.
himself may be quite unconscious of it, there
is generally one leading feature in every stam-
merer's infirmity. This must be the first
point to attack, as, in dealing with it, minor
difficulties hitherto but partially developed are
either swept away or made to stand out more
clearly, when they can in turn be the more
readily eradicated.
" Stammering, you know, can be acquired
through imitation. I constantly impress
upon my pupils the absolute necessity for
abandoning all those extraneous aids, efforts,
tricks, mannerisms, and queer dodges by
which so many people hope to overcome
stammering. They must throw over every-
thing which is absolutely not necessary for
perfect speech/'
Nothing but personal contact with his many
and exceedingly varied types of stammerers
has helped Mr. Beasley to his success in this
novel career. He adapts his system individu-
ally, feeling that the method which might be
FIRMNESS NECESSARY. 97
successful with one person would utterly fail
with another. But stammerers may rest
assured that a few weeks' personal aid from
him, backed up by willingness and firmness on
their part, will inevitably result in their
complete cure.
Chapter XII.
Reminiscences of a Stammerer.
Some years before his death, in response to the
request of many of those who, having bene-
fited by the Beasley treatment, wanted to know
more of the man than they had learned while
under instruction, Mr. Beasley wrote and
published his reminiscences as a stammerer.
It is, unfortunately, impossible for me within
the covers of this book to re-issue all the
chapters in which Mr. Beasley gave what
must be to every stammerer so engrossing a
human document.
But a few extracts may serve to help and
encourage others who are, to their sorrow,
afflicted as he was for the major part of his
life, to cultivate the same spirit of determina-
tion, and so overcome their difficulties. They
MR BEASLEY'S TASK. 99
have, at any rate, this in their favour, that they
can be taught in a few lessons what it took him
years of study and work and concentration
to discover and perfect for his own cure.
In his case he groped in the dark, as thous-
ands of stammerers have done before him, and
as thousands are doing at this day, until he
had almost reached middle age ; and, never
once, despite rebuffs and repulses, relaxing his
efforts, a ray of light finally illuminated the
darkness and gave him renewed courage and
hope, lightening his path until he reached the
broad light of day, and could speak as a man
to other men, looking all boldly in the face,
" speaking with self-respect/' knowing " there
was no being to be feared save Almighty
God."
These reminiscences show Mr. Beasley as
he was ; a man of vigorous frame, strong will,
iron determination, a man of great intellectual
capacity who would have made the business
in which he was engaged in early manhood a
ioo STAMMERING.
huge success but for the unfortunate impedi-
ment which crippled and handicapped him at
every turn, and who, having cured himself,
turned to account the discovery he had made
and established the greatest school for the cure
of stammerers that has ever been known, to
the incalculable benefit of thousands.
His story is plainly told, and it is perhaps as
well that without paraphrase or condensation
I should, in a series of short extracts, give such
parts of it here as may be of most immediate
interest to my readers : —
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.
I do not recollect when first I began to stammer, but
I believe it was when about five years of age, and after
some child-ailment ; but I remember perfectly the
first time I became painfully conscious of my defect.
When about eight or nine years of age I went with my
sisters to a children's party. Before we returned home,
I was requested by our hostess to call with some boarding-
school young ladies with a message to the mistress,
apologising for having kept them rather late. No doubt
EARLY DIFFICULTIES. 101
I was immensely gratified at being made so important a
cavalier, but my vanity soon received a very severe
shock.
During our short walk I kept saying the message
over again to myself, not however without some
misgivings as to being able to deliver it without
difficulty. My misgivings were certainly not without
foundation, for I shall never forget so long as I live the
utter misery that simple message cost me. I was unable
to say a single word for a considerable time, and when I
found utterance, what I said was almost unintelligible,
by reason of my nervous confusion.
I was simply as bad as if I were dumb. I don't
think I should have felt it so much had it not been for the
presence of the young ladies, who I could see were giggling
at what seemed to them so funny. It was no fun for me,
for the misery I experienced during those few minutes had
so impressed itself on my mind, that at a distance of fifty
years it is as vivid to me as it was at that moment.
After that, whenever I saw in the distance either the
lady who kept the school or any of her pupils, I would
turn back or go a mile out of my way to avoid them ;
nothing could induce me to face them again.
Ever afterwards I was conscious of my infirmity, and
it would not be difficult for me to fill a volume with the
102 STAMMERING.
bitter mortifications which from that time I have since
suffered. Whether others feel the same amount of shame
and painful emotions I cannot say, but to me, even in my
early life, it was sometimes absolute torture.
SCHOOL DAYS.
My parents did all they could to get me cured, but,
unfortunately, many of their plans were not only
unsuccessful but injurious. I was sent to different
schools where the masters had an idea they could cure
me, but in several of these trials I was made worse. I
was sent to schools where there were only a few boys, as
it was thought that I should be better looked after ;
but whether I went to a large or a small school the result
was the same.
Most, if not all, of my masters, after trying to aid
me, found that it took up too much of their time, and
interfered too much with the work of the whole class ;
and, besides, having but a vague notion as to what to do
or advise, they generally abandoned the attempt after a
few weeks' trial.
A stammering boy is very heavily handicapped at
school, and I was handicapped in two ways. First, by
SCHOOL DAYS. 103
my impediment, and, secondly, by neglect of study.
In construing, I found the greatest difficulty, and the
long time that the class was kept waiting for me caused
my tutors to pass me over and give me credit for knowing
what I often did not know.
One way in which I was sorely tried was when I knew
my lessons thoroughly, but was unable to say them, and
was called dunce, blockhead, or other impolite names,
which I felt were unjust ; for although I generally met
with kindness and consideration from my tutors, I have
met with those who showed neither.
The happiest of my school days were those I spent at
a grammar school in a small country town, where the
master took only a few boarders, and, having sons of
his own, and also some of his nephews, we formed a very
happy little party. There were a good many day boys,
so we had plenty of games ; and, as there were several
good families in the neighbourhood whose boys attended,
we had good games. The head master, an Oxford
M.A., was a splendid old fellow, kind and genial, who
would do anything in reason in the way of relaxation,
provided we worked well ; but woe betide the lazy
lad — the cane and he were sure to become intimately
acquainted, and for him extra holidays were few and far
between.
104 STAMMERING.
But even here, with everything pleasant around me,
my stammering caused me much pain. The son of the
head master, though a capital fellow generally, and very
kind to me, could not always refrain from reminding me,
not in the pleasantest way possible, of my difficulty ; and
if he did help me in my work, I used to think it would
have been more pleasant if he had been less inclined to
humour, and sometimes to slight sarcasm, at my expense.
He once greatly offended me. He was several years
older than I, and, of course, being in the position of a
second master, the boys were always willing to do any-
thing for him. He sent me to get some article for him
from the ironmongers', and gave me half-a-crown to pay
the cost. Now, going on errands was most distasteful to
me on account of my impediment, but, as I could get
no one else to go for me, I was compelled to go myself.
With fear and trembling, I went into the shop, and
managed to stammer out what I wanted to say.
Whether the shopman had ever heard a stammerer
before I do not know, but I felt he was looking at me ;
and, fancying he was smiling at my ineffectual attempts
to speak, I became so extremety uneasy and nervous,
that as soon as I got the article I wanted I rushed out
of the shop without waiting for the change or even
thinking at all about it. I heard the young man running
Mr. B. Beasley.
To facte page 104.
A PAINFUL EPISODE. C05
after me and calling me back, but shame and confusion
lent speed to my legs, and, although he was bigger than
I, he was soon outstripped. On taking the thing I had
bought to my tutor, he asked me for the change, which
should have been two shillings. I stammered out that
they had not given me any.
When a day or two afterwards he learned what had
happened, he was anything but complimentary, and told
me before a lot of boys that he had been asked if I was
not daft, and that I was a great fool, and only fit to be
taken out by a nurse. I could not brook this, and
retaliated by calling him a bully and anything but a
gentleman, at which he threatened to box my ears. I
told him if he did I should take my ears' part, and
openly defied him. Had not the head master put in an
appearance, I do not know what might have happened.
Most likely I should have been dismissed for turning on
my tutor.
Happily, the master was a man of very sound sense,
and, thinking it strange that there should be a rupture
between myself and his son (as we had always been such
friends), took me into his study, where he elicited from
me the whole of the story as well as I could tell it. He
was very kind and evidently understood me ; and while
at the same time he gave me a lecture on proper
io6 STAMMERING.
behaviour to tutors, I have no doubt he had something
to say to his son, for not long after we were good friends
again, and I never from that time had occasion to feel
hurt on account of my infirmity, for I believe he always
took care to smooth matters in every way.
IN BUSINESS.
Until I was seventeen my stammering did not give
me the constant trouble and vexation it subsequently
did. In business my occupation was such that I could
do pretty well as I liked. Being in my father's works,
I was not so trammelled as I might have been in those of
a stranger. My duties called me both into the office
and the mills, but I always chose to do that which did
not bring me into contact with strangers or require any
talking.
Although this was a great trouble to me, I never let
my relatives know how much I felt it, as I was always
very sensitive on the subject ; so they never knew
to how great an extent I was incapable of conducting
business properly.
When at the age of about three or four-and-twenty, a
circumstance occurred which was afterwards destined to
bring before me in its true light the immense difficulty
BUSINESS DISABILITIES.
I had to contend with. Our firm, besides carrying on
large iron and steel works, supplied a number of gun-
makers with gun-barrels and sword-makers with steel.
One of our customers, a gun-maker, had got very
heavily into our debt, and being also otherwise largely
involved, laid his affairs before us. The result was that
our firm took his affairs in hand, paid off his debts, and
gave him a good salary as foreman. The management
of the whole business was given to me, and in this
position I soon began to find how heavily handicapped
I was through my infirmity.
Constant talk to workpeople and strangers, instead
of giving me confidence, made me infinitely worse ;
and although I argued with myself, and strove
to conquer my difficulty by force of will, I at last
gave in. I avoided all business matters which needed
talking, leaving that to be done by others.
There were some people to whom I could scarcely utter a
word, and many times have I gone out of my way to
avoid meeting them. I would frequently go out when I
knew certain persons were going to call, so greatly did I
dread exposing my infirmity, and although much business
was lost in consequence, I could not summon up the
courage to conquer my extreme shame and ner-
vousness.
108 STAMMERING.
All this may seem very strange to those who do not
know what it is to suffer thus, but I know there will be
many who will entirely endorse all I say. The feeling
of shame, the sense of demoralisation, will be thoroughly
understood by those who do suffer.
This condition of things continued for about five years,
when a great change occurred in the military gun
trade. The Government were anxious to break up a
combination of gun-makers, and the obstructions of their
men, which militated to a considerable extent against
the satisfactory execution of orders. They therefore
invited tenders from the whole of the trade.
I was successful in obtaining an immense contract, but
this was much against the wish of our old firm (whose
interests were altogether bound up in the ring), and they
refused to enter into the matter or find capital for me
to execute the contract.
Requiring a very large amount of money to carry
out my plans, I mentioned the matter to a friend, who
was a partner in a very large mercantile and finance
company.
My friend, knowing my qualifications as a manu-
facturer, was very willing and anxious to go into the
matter and find the required capital ; but before any-
thing definite could be arranged his partners had to be
A HEAVY LOSS. 109
consulted, and an appointment with them was made
that I might explain my views.
In the week before the interview I unconsciously
worked myself up to a pitch of intense excitement,
knowing the difficulties I should have to contend with
through my impediment.
On the appointed day I was introduced by my friend
to his partners, but I might as well have been dumb, for
my inability to speak was so great that it caused them
absolute pain, I could see, even to listen to my abortive
attempts to make myself understood.
The gentlemen did not know me intimately, and
naturally considered me incapable of managing an affair
of such great moment. Of course they did not tell me
so, but I afterwards learned that my stammering was
the sole cause of their abandoning the idea.
This was the most terrible blow that I had ever
experienced, as, had I been able to carry the matter
through, I should have made a very substantial fortune
out of that one transaction.
For some weeks I was in a state of utter despon-
dency. But it had one good effect, that of arousing a
determination to conquer my enemy ; though it was
many, many years before I accomplished my desire.
no STAMMERING.
A DISCOVERY.
For many years I had been seeking relief from my
difficulty, when, strange as it may seem, it dawned on
me suddenly.
Walking through one of our lovely Worcestershire
lanes, and, as was my custom, talking aloud to myself
and carefully watching every trip of tongue, I suddenly
became conscious of one action in speech which is
imperative before freedom of utterance can be obtained.
This of itself opened to me a wide field of thought,
and became the basis upon which I have built my
system — a system from which I have never deviated nor
gone back. In fact, I may say from that time all has
been plain sailing.
When I returned home I talked to my people, I read
to them, I recited poetry ; indeed, I scarcely knew what
I did, I was so overjoyed. I was like a child with a new
toy, and I felt like a new being. So great was the
pleasure of being able to speak with freedom "that I
never missed an opportunity of holding conversation
with anyone I could enlist, and I fear I must often have
been a great nuisance ; certainly no one could then
complain of my silence, nor accuse me of being uncom-
municative.
Soon, however, I had to guard myself against a
THE FIRST PUPIL. in
danger — that of becoming careless. My freedom was so
great that I almost forgot I was a stammerer, and I
thought little of the warning an occasional trip some-
times gave me. After a time these warnings were so
frequent that I became alarmed, but when I found that,
by strictly adhering to the rule, I could under all circum-
stances and in the presence of anyone — relatives, friends,
or strangers — speak perfectly, I made a resolve that I
would try my hardest to always observe strict rule.
By this course in a few months I had so perfected
my system that I became unconscious of using any
system, and my old habit of stammering had been changed
for the natural method of speaking.
My friends and intimates were much surprised, and
could not help expressing their pleasure at so great a
change, while many of them strongly advised me to
make my system known for the benefit of others.
But before doing so I thought it wise to try it
further on someone else. I was not long in finding a
subject, that of a bright little lad, about twelve years of
age, employed as errand boy by a chemist living near
me. The poor little fellow was very bad, in fact his
employer told me that he should be obliged to discharge
him, as he was getting much worse, and altogether
unable to follow his occupation.
ii2 STAMMERING.
I took the boy in hand, had him for an hour in the
evening, and in the course of a few months he was free
of speech. My next case was that of a working man, a
relative of an old man-servant of mine, and although he
was middle-aged, I found no more difficulty with him
than with the boy.
My reputation soon began to spread, and I had many
applications, with all of which I was more or less suc-
cessful. At last I thought it wise to undertake cases
professionally, and the hundreds of grateful letters
from pupils and their friends that I now possess are of
themselves sufficient testimony to the wisdom of my
course.
No stammerer need despair ; if he have an earnest
desire — which will take the form of earnest work — to
be cured, it is a certainty that he will succeed.
"3
TERMS
Mr. Ketley wishes it to be clearly understood that
the scale of fees charged and the arrangements made
for giving instruction are such as to bring the system of
treatment within the reach of all classes of society.
No charge is made for consultation, and it is eminently
desirable, in the best interests of the prospective pupil,
that a personal interview should be arranged when
information as to terms is being sought. Much depends
on the temperament of the individual and the character
of the impediment, and the consequent probabilities
concerning the time necessary to effect a cure in each
case.
Many artizans and tradesmen have been treated at
evening classes with the most satisfactory results.
Having realised the terrible drawback and hindrance to
success due to their infirmity, they have sought a cure,
and their ambition to rise in the world has proved a
great incentive to effort which has resulted in complete
success. For such pupils apartments near by are
recommended as tending to a considerable reduction
in expense.
Stammerers are treated either with or without
scholastic instruction, but where the latter is desired,
ii 4 STAMMERING.
parents are assured that the pupil will receive a thoroughly
sound education in such subjects as may be desired.
Public School Boys received during their holidays.
Undergraduates can study and be coached during
vacation while being treated for their stammering.
Stammerers past middle life have been treated with
unqualified success, and many cases of long standing,
which have defied all previous attempts at cure,
have succumbed to the Beasley system.
It is erroneous to suppose that cases of long standing
cannot be cured. Many pupils of mature age who,
before consulting Mr. Ketley, have thought their malady
almost hopeless, have in an incredibly short time
obtained relief. These eminently satisfactory results
can only be traced to the Extreme Simplicity of the
system, which in itself compels perfect action of speech,
and makes the pupil a Better Speaker than the majority
of those who have never stammered.
The daily opportunities afforded of speaking before a
number of listeners form a great feature in the treatment,
as by this course pupils learn their powers, the nervous-
ness which generally accompanies stammering gradually
subsides, and those who before could scarcely articulate
are thus able to speak perfectly before a large audience.
H5
TESTIMONIALS.
For obvious reasons these are not printed
in this volume, but many hundreds of letters
from old pupils may be seen at Tarrangower,
and lists of up-to-date references will be sent
on application.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
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