Stammering, Its Cause and Cure Part 14

Case No. 98.656--This was the case of a rather arrogant young man from a good family, who was too proud to admit that he was a stammerer.

Rather it should be said, he was too foolish to admit it. He was well-educated and with the store of words at his command, succeeded for some years in concealing the fact that he stammered. This he accomplished by the subst.i.tution of words. That is, words beginning with those letters that he could not utter were not used. If his sentence included such a word, he quickly subst.i.tuted another word of somewhat similar meaning, but beginning with a letter that he could p.r.o.nounce correctly. This subst.i.tution of words was so well done that for some time it was scarcely noticeable to the average listener. Often he found himself incorrectly understood, because of his inability to use the right word in the right place, but nevertheless he was successful in concealing his speech defect from many of his friends.

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

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

He placed himself for treatment, although in a frame of mind that did not augur well for his success, but by the end of the third day his mental att.i.tude had entirely changed, he came to realize the immense difference between being able to speak fluently and naturally and being compelled to subst.i.tute synonyms. From that day forth he was one of my best students. His education stood him in good stead, his enthusiasm was so spontaneous as to be contagious and at the end of four and a half weeks, he departed, as thoroughly changed for the better as anyone could wish. The arrogance was gone. In its place was something better--a sure-footed confidence in his ability to talk--and this was a confidence based on real ability--not on bluff. He was no longer nervous and irritable--and in fact, before leaving, he had won his way into the hearts of his a.s.sociates to the extent that all were sorry when he left and felt that they had made the acquaintance of a young man of remarkable power.

Five years later, I met him in New York, quite by accident. He was in charge of his father's business, had made a wonderful success of his work and was universally respected and admired by those who knew him.

Even to this young man, who to many would have seemed to have all that he could desire, freedom of speech opened new and greater opportunities.

If I had the s.p.a.ce to do so within the covers of one volume, I would gladly give many more cases, with description and diagnosis as well as results of treatment. Specific cases are always interesting, illuminating and conclusive. They show theory in practice and opinions backed by actual results.

But lack of s.p.a.ce makes it impossible to give additional cases here.

Those which have been given are typical cases--not the unusual ones.

The out-of-the-ordinary cases have been avoided and the common types dwelt upon with the idea of "giving the greatest good to the greatest number."

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

PART IV

SETTING THE TONGUE FREE

CHAPTER I

THE JOY OF PERFECT SPEECH

If you stammer--if you are afraid to try to talk for fear you will fail--if you are nervous, self-conscious and retiring because of your stammering--then you don't realize the Magic Power of Perfect Speech.

You don't realize what perfect speech will mean to you. Listen to this--from a young woman who stammered--who was cured--and who knows:

"The most wonderful thing has happened to me. What do you think it is!

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

That is the way she feels after being entirely freed from her stammering--after learning to talk freely and fluently without difficulty, hesitation or fear-of-failure.

And here are the words of a young man who has just found his speech: "The Bogue Cure is marvelous. It is just like making a blind man see.

It is remarkable. The sensation of being able to talk after stammering for twenty-five years is wonderful."

And another young woman--this time from Missouri:

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

The joy of perfect speech:

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

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

Such is the Joy of Perfect Speech!!

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

To know that you are free--delivered from bondage.

What a feeling--what a sensation--

Living itself is worth-while. Life means more. The sun s.h.i.+nes brighter, the gra.s.s is greener, the flowers are more beautiful while friends and relatives seem closer, kinder and dearer than ever before.

The Joy of Perfect Speech!

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

CHAPTER II

HOW TO DETERMINE WHETHER YOU CAN BE CURED

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

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

Why should you live a HALF LIFE as a stammerer, if you can be cured and live the complete, joyous, happy, overflowing life?

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

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

The answer is, YOU SHOULD NOT.

The first step, therefore, is to determine definitely and accurately whether you are in a curable stage of your trouble and whether you can be completely and permanently cured.

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

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

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

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