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Anthony Trollope - "North America"

George Gissing - "The Nether World"

George W. Bush - "State of the Union Addresses of George W. Bush"

Stammering, Its Cause and Cure

B >> Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue >> Stammering, Its Cause and Cure




"School now began to be a burden. I think I must have supplied fun
for every boy on the school grounds during recess-time, for if
there was a boy who didn't make fun of me and mock me and laugh at
me, then I don't know who he was.

"Then one day I started back to school at noontime, saw a crowd of
boys on the corner a couple of blocks away, thought of what a task
it would be to go into that crowd or try to pass it. A mortal and
unreasoning fear came over me. Try as I would, I couldn't screw my
courage up to the point of going past that crowd. But I had small
choice. It was either go that way or stay out of school. And stay
out of school I did.

"And then came the crucial day. I could not ask my parents to
vouch for any absence--I dared not tell them I was not there. So I
went back without an excuse. The teacher was angry. She tried to
get me to talk, but I could not say a word. So she sent me to the
principal. She, too, asked me to explain. Try as I would, I
couldn't get the first word out. Not a sound.

"She, too, failed to understand. Result: I was expelled from
school--sorry day--nobody seemed to understand my trouble--nobody
seemed to sympathize with me--a stammerer.

"Although I pretended to be at school, before the week was out, my
parents found out. Then a storm ensued. I tried to tell them the
truth. They wouldn't listen. Father stormed and mother scolded.
There seemed to be no living for me there. So I ran away from
home--ran away because my parents wouldn't listen--because they
wouldn't try to understand.

"Then my troubles began in real earnest. I won't worry you with
the details. I got a job--lost it. Got another--lost that. How
many times that story was repeated I do not know. And remember--I
was but a boy!"

Here the old man stopped, his head dropped, his unkempt beard
brushed the front of a tattered shirt, that had seen its day. He
seemed lost in thought--he was living again those days and those
nights when he had wandered an outcast from the world. He was
living over a lifetime in a moment.

He sat there several moments--thoughts far away. Then he raised
his head and there was a tear in the corner of his eye as he said,
"But why should I go on? Look at me. See WHERE I am. See WHAT I
am. You would think I am over 70--I am not yet 50. But it is too
late to do any good. Here I am homeless, friendless, almost
penniless. Nobody cares what happens. Nobody would notice if
anything should happen. Nobody has a job for me--a stammerer. If I
could talk, I could work. If I could talk--Oh, but why tell it
again? It is too late now--too late to do any good!!"

He was right. It was too late. Too late, indeed.

This man was one of the Too-Laters--one of the Put-It-Offs, one of
the Procrastinators. His might be called the story of the Man Who
Waited.

First, his parents refused to listen. His teachers, even, failed
to understand his trouble. And when he got out in the world he put
it off, this matter of being cured of stammering. He Waited! He
kept saying to himself that he would do it tomorrow--next week--
next month. And tomorrow never came. Next week and next month ran
into next year--and next year ran into a case that was hopeless
and incurable.

He Waited!! How tragic those two words. He Waited! And his waiting
sounded the death-knell of a thousand boyhood hopes. HE WAITED!!
And health slowly took wings and flew away. HE WAITED!! And the
insidious little Devil-of-Fear piece by piece tore down his will-
power, sapped his power-of-concentration. HE WAITED!! And that
first simple nervous condition turned into something near akin to
palsy.

On the tombstone of that man when they lay him under his six-feet-
of-earth, they might truly inscribe the words: "A Failure"--and
should they wish to set down the reason, they might add: "He
Waited!"

To the stammerer's question: "When should I begin treatment for my
stammering?" and "At what stage will I stand the best chance of
being most quickly cured?" there is but one answer. The time for
the stammerer or stutterer to begin treatment for his malady is
the day he discovers his stammering or stuttering. The best chance
for being quickly cured exists today.

The stammerer, then, to paraphrase Emerson, should "Write it on
his heart that TODAY is the very best day in the year." He should
remember that indecision, delay, uncertainty, vacillation, lead to
oblivion and that his only redemption lies in that golden
opportunity known as--TODAY!

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