Stammering, Its Cause and Cure   By: Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

ITS CAUSE AND CURE

BY

BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE

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

TO MY MOTHER

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

CONTENTS

Preface

PART I MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER

I. Starting Life Under a Handicap II. My First Attempt to Be Cured III. My Search Continues IV. A Stammerer Hunts a Job V. Further Futile Attempts to Be Cured VI. I Refuse to Be Discouraged VII. The Benefit of Many Failures VIII. Beginning Where Others Had Left Off

PART II STAMMERING AND STUTTERING

The Causes, Peculiarities, Tendencies and Effects

I. Speech Disorders Defined II. The Causes of Stuttering and Stammering III. The Peculiarities of Stuttering and Stammering IV. The Intermittent Tendency V. The Progressive Tendency VI. Can Stammering and Stuttering Be Outgrown? VII. The Effect on the Mind VIII. The Effect on the Body IX. Defective Speech in Children, (1) The Pre Speaking Period X. Defective Speech in Children, (2) The Formative Period XI. Defective Speech in Children, (3) The Speech Setting Period XII. The Speech Disorders of Youth XIII. Where Does Stammering Lead?

PART III THE CURE OF STAMMERING AND STUTTERING

I. Can Stammering Really Be Cured? II. Cases That "Cure Themselves" III. Cases That Cannot Be Cured IV. Can Stammering Be Cured by Mail? V. The Importance of Expert Diagnosis VI. The Secret of Curing Stuttering and Stammering VII. The Bogue Unit Method Described VIII. Some Cases I Have Met

PART IV SETTING THE TONGUE FREE

I. The Joy of Perfect Speech II. How to Determine Whether You Can Be Cured III. The Bogue Guarantee and What It Means IV. The Cure Is Permanent V. A Priceless Gift An Everlasting Investment VI. The Home of Perfect Speech VII. My Mother and The Home Life at the Institute VIII. A Heart to Heart Talk with Parents IX. The Dangers of Delay

PREFACE

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

This insufficiency of existing books on stammering has encouraged me to bring out the present volume. It is needed. I know this because I spent almost twenty years of my life in a well nigh futile search for the very knowledge herein revealed. I haunted the libraries, was a familiar figure in book stores and a frequent visitor to the second hand dealer. Yet these efforts brought me comparatively little not one tenth the information that this book contains.