At first my friends could not believe that my cure was permanent.  Even my mother doubted the evidence of her own ears.  But I knew the trouble would not come back, for the old fear was gone, the nervousness soon passed away, and a new feeling of confidence and self-reliance took hold of me, with the result that in a few weeks I was a changed man.  People who had formerly avoided me because of my infirmity began to greet me with new interest.  Gradually the old affliction was forgotten by those with whom I came into daily contact and by many I was thought of as a man who had never stammered.  Even today, those who knew me when I stammered so badly I could hardly talk, are hardly able to believe that I am the same person who used to be known as “Ben Bogue’s boy who stutters.”

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

Today, I can say with Terence, “I am a man and nothing that is human is alien to me.”  And I can go a step further and say to those who are afflicted as I was afflicted:  “I have been a stammerer.  I know your troubles, your sorrows, your discouragements.  I understand with an understanding born of a costly experience.”

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

PART II

STAMMERING AND STUTTERING

The Causes, Peculiarities, Tendencies and Effects

CHAPTER I

SPEECH DISORDERS DEFINED

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