Like the first belief, this belief that the child could stop if he wanted to, is based upon ignorance. No mother or father who has ever experienced the sensation of fear that grips the heart of the stammering child when he tries to speak, will say that he could stop if he would.

I say to you—and I want to emphasize this—that the first and foremost ambition of your child who stammers, is to be free from it. The greatest day of his life will be the day when he can talk without that fear, without sticking and stumbling and hesitating over his utterances.

I say to you again—if that boy or girl of yours could stop their stammering, he or she would stop it this very instant. They would never stammer again—if they were endowed with the power to stop. But they are not. That is the very seed of their trouble—their inability to control the actions of the vocal organs so as to produce normal speech. They have lost the control of those organs and they cannot of their own volition re-establish that control.

The third belief, that stammering cannot be cured, is so easily demolished that I shall devote but little time to it. It, like all false beliefs, has its foundation in ignorance. The mother or father who knows the facts, knows also that stammering can be cured. You may not know whether your boy or girl can be cured, but you are offered a way to find out—definitely and positively, by describing your child's case on my Diagnosis Blank and returning it to me for a thorough Diagnosis.

Put your beliefs to one side—whatever they may be. You can get the facts if you want them. You can learn the truth if you will. Truth is better than false beliefs and facts are better than superstition or hearsay, which in every case leads to misery, dejection and despair—a ruined life where a successful, happy and contented life might have been—except for stammering.

You have a well-defined responsibility to your son or daughter. You have a duty to perform—that is, to equip that boy or girl of yours to go out into the world as well equipped as any other boy or girl—and that means equipped with perfect speech—without which they will be too greatly handicapped to fully succeed.



CHAPTER IX

THE DANGERS OF DELAY

In many of the cases which have come to my attention in the past many years, the stammerer or stutterer has been afflicted with a malady more difficult to cure than stammering, viz.: The Habit of Procrastination.

"Oh, I will wait a little while," says the stammerer. "A little while can't make any difference!" And then the little while grows into a big while and the big while grows into a year and the year grows into a lifetime and he is still stammering.

Several months ago, an old man, stooped in stature, care-worn of countenance and halting of step, presented himself to me for diagnosis. His face was drawn into long, hard lines. His eyes shifted from side to side, glancing furtively here and there.

In his trembling hands was a worn old derby which he turned about nervously as he stood there talking. The nervousness, the trembling of the hands, the drawn face, the shifting eyes—all this was explained by the story that this man told as he sat there beside the desk.

"I fell from a ladder when I was ten years old," he said. "After that, I always stammered. My parents thought it was a habit—I can remember yet how my mother scolded me day after day and told me to 'quit talking that way.' But it was useless to tell me to quit. I COULDN'T quit! If I could have done it, certainly I WOULD, for having stammered yourself, you know what it means.

"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!

THE END