Stammering, Its Cause and Cure | Page 5

to Freedom of Speech--his birthright and the
birthright of every man.
BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE
Indianapolis September, 1929

STAMMERING Its Cause and Cure

PART I
MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER


CHAPTER I
STARTING LIFE UNDER A HANDICAP
I was laughed at for nearly twenty years because I stammered. I found
school a burden, college a practical impossibility and life a misery
because of my affliction.
I was born in Wabash county, Indiana, and as far back as I can
remember, there was never a time when I did not stammer or stutter. So
far as I know, the halting utterance came with the first word I spoke and
for almost twenty years this difficulty continued to dog me relentlessly.
When six years of age, I went to the little school house down the road,
little realizing what I was to go through with there before I left.
Previous to the time I entered school, those around me were my family,
my relatives and my friends--people who were very kind and
considerate, who never spoke of my difficulty in my presence, and
certainly never laughed at me.
At school, it was quite another matter. It was fun for the other boys to
hear me speak and it was common pastime with them to get me to talk
whenever possible. They would jibe and jeer--and then ask, "What did
you say? Why don't you learn to talk English?" Their best
entertainment was to tease and mock me until I became angry, taunt me
when I did, and ridicule me at every turn.

It was not only in the school yard and going to and from school that I
suffered--but also in class. When I got up to recite, what a spectacle I
made, hesitating over every other word, stumbling along, gasping for
breath, waiting while speech returned to me. And how they laughed at
me--for then I was helpless to defend myself. True, my teachers tried to
be kind to me, but that did not make me talk normally like other
children, nor did it always prevent the others from laughing at me.
The reader can imagine my state of mind during these school days. I
fairly hated even to start to school in the morning--not because I
disliked to go to school, but because I was sure to meet some of my
taunting comrades, sure to be humiliated and laughed at because I
stammered. And having reached the school room I had to face the
prospect of failing every time I stood up on my feet and tried to recite.
There were four things I looked forward to with positive dread-- the
trip to school, the recitations in class, recess in the school yard and the
trip home again. It makes me shudder even now to think of those
days--the dread with which I left that home of mine every school day
morning, the nervous strain, the torment and torture, and the constant
fear of failure which never left me. Imagine my thoughts as I left
parents and friends to face the ribald laughter of those who did not
understand. I asked myself: "Well, what new disgrace today? Whom
will I meet this morning? What will the teacher say when I stumble?
How shall I get through recess? What is the easiest way home?"
These and a hundred other questions, born of nervousness and fear, I
asked myself morning after morning. And day after day, as the hours
dragged by, I would wonder, "Will this day NEVER end? Will I
NEVER get out of this?"
Such was my life in school. And such is the daily life of thousands of
boys and hundreds of girls--a life of dread, of constant fear, of endless
worry and unceasing nervousness.
But, as I look back at the boys and girls who helped to make life
miserable for me in school, I feel for them only kindness. I bear no
malice. They did no more than their fathers and mothers, many of them,

would have done. They little realized what they were doing. They had
no intention to do me personal injury, though there is no question in my
mind but that they made my trouble worse. They did not know how
terribly they were punishing me. They saw in my affliction only fun,
while I saw in it--only misery.

CHAPTER II
MY FIRST ATTEMPT TO BE CURED
I can remember very clearly the positive fear which always
accompanied a visit to our friends or neighbors, or the advent of
visitors at my home. Many a time I did not have what I desired to eat
because I was afraid to ask for it. When I did ask, every eye was turned
on me, and the looks of the strangers, with now and then a