Stammering, Its Cause and Cure | Page 4

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
PAST 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.
Perhaps it is but a colossal conceit that prompts me to offer this volume
to those who stutter and stammer as I did. Yet, I cannot but believe that

almost twenty years' personal experience as a stammerer plus more
than twenty-eight years' experience in curing speech disorders has
supplied me with an intensely practical, valuable and worth-while
knowledge on which to base this book.
After having stammered for twenty years you have pretty well run the
whole gamut of mockery, humiliation and failure. You understand the
stammerer's feelings, his mental processes and his peculiarities.
And when you add to this more than a quarter of a century, every
waking hour of which has been spent in alleviating the stammerer's
difficulty--and successfully, too--you have a ground-work of first-hand
information that tends toward facts instead of fiction and toward
practice instead of theory.
These are my qualifications.
I have spent a life-time in studying stammering, stuttering and kindred
speech defects. I have written this book out of the fullness of that
experience--I might almost say out of my daily work. I have made no
attempt at literary style or rhetorical excellence and while the work may
be homely in expression the information it contains is definite and
positive--and what is more important--it is authoritative.
I hope the reader will find the book useful--yes, and helpful. I hope he
will find in it the way