Stammering, its cause and cure

by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

It was this man who first brought home to me the fact that principles of speech are constant, that they never change and that every person who talks normally follows out the same principles of speech, while every person who stutters or stammers violates these principles of speech. That is the basis of sound procedure for the cure of stammering and I must acknowledge my indebtedness to this sincere old gentleman who did so much for me in the way of knowledge, even though he did but little for me in the way of results.

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

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

Some time after trying my experiment with the eastern schools, I saw the advertisement of a professor from Chicago saying that he would be at Fort Wayne, Indiana, (which was 40 miles from my home), for a week.

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

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

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

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

By this time, my effort to be cured of stammering had become a habit, just as eating and sleeping are habits. I was determined to be cured. I made up my mind I would never give up. True, I often said to myself, "I may never be cured," but in the same breath I resolved that if I was not, it could never be said that it was because I was a "quitter."

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