Stammering

Nathaniel Bogue Benjamin

Description

Stammering and stuttering are speech disorders that often cause those who suffer from them a great deal of pain and embarrassment. Although modern medicine has devised its own take on the issue, author Benjamin Bogue offers his own homespun program to help reduce stammering in Stammering: Its Cause and Cure.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775410355
• Langue: English

Extrait

STAMMERING
ITS CAUSE AND CURE
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BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE
 
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Stammering Its Cause and Cure
ISBN 978-1-775410-35-5
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Stammering Preface PART I - MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER Chapter I - Starting Life Under a Handicap Chapter II - My First Attempt to Be Cured Chapter III - My Search Continues Chapter IV - A Stammerer Hunts a Job Chapter V - Further Futile Attempts to Be Cured Chapter VI - I Refuse to Be Discouraged Chapter VII - The Benefit of Many Failures Chapter VIII - Beginning Where Others Had Left Off PART II - STAMMERING AND STUTTERING Chapter I - Speech Disorders Defined Chapter II - The Causes of Stuttering and Stammering Chapter III - The Peculiarities of Stuttering and Stammering Chapter IV - The Intermittent Tendency Chapter V - The Progressive Tendency Chapter VI - Can Stammering and Stuttering Be Outgrown? Chapter VII - The Effect on the Mind Chapter VIII - The Effects on the Body Chapter IX - Defective Speech in Children Chapter X - Defective Speech in Childhen Chapter XI - Defective Speech in Children Chapter XII - The Speech Disorders of Youth Chapter XIII - Where Does Stammering Lead? PART III - THE CURE OF STAMMERING AND STUTTERING Chapter I - Can Stammering Beally Be Cured? Chapter II - Cases that "Cure Themselves" Chapter III - Cases that Cannot Be Cured Chapter IV - Can Stammering Be Cured by Mail? Chapter V - The Importance of Expert Diagnosis Chapter VI - The Secret of Curing Stuttering and Stammering Chapter VII - The Bogue Unit Method Described Chapter VIII - Some Cases I Have Met PART IV - SETTING THE TONGUE FREE Chapter I - The Joy of Perfect Speech Chapter II - How to Determine Whether You Can Be Cured Chapter III - The Bogue Guarantee and What it Means Chapter IV - The Cure is Permanent Chapter V - A Priceless Gift—An Everlasting Investment Chapter VI - The Home of Perfect Speech Chapter VII - My Mother and the Home Life at the Institute Chapter VIII - A Heart-To-Heart Talk with Parents Chapter IX - The Dangers of Delay
Stammering
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ITS CAUSE AND CURE
BY BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE
A Chronic Stammerer for Almost Twenty Years; Originator of theBogue Unit Method of Restoring Perfect Speech; Founder of theBogue Institute for Stammerers and Editor of the "Emancipator," amagazine devoted to the Interests of Perfect Speech
TO MY MOTHER
That wonderful woman whose unflagging courage held me to a taskthat I never could have completed alone and who when all othersfailed, stood by me, encouraged me and pointed out the heightswhere lay success—this volume is dedicated
Preface
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Considerably more than a third of a century has elapsed since Ipurchased my first book on stammering. I still have that quaintlittle book made up in its typically English style with smallpages, small type and yellow paper back—the work of an Englishauthor whose obtuse and half-baked theories certainly lent noclarity to the stammerer's understanding of his trouble. Sincethat first purchase my library of books on stammering has grownuntil it is perhaps the largest individual collection in theworld. I have read these books—many of them several times,pondered over the obscurities in some, smiled at the absurditiesin others and benefited by the truths in a few. Yet, with alltheir profound explanations of theories and their verbose defenseof hopelessly unscientific methods, the stammerer would bedisappointed indeed, should he attempt to find in the entirecollection a practical and understandable discussion of histrouble.
This insufficiency of existing books on stammering has encouragedme to bring out the present volume. It is needed. I know this—because I spent almost twenty years of my life in a well-nighfutile search for the very knowledge herein revealed. I hauntedthe libraries, was a familiar figure in book stores and a frequentvisitor to the second-hand dealer. Yet these efforts brought mecomparatively little—not one-tenth the information that this bookcontains.
Perhaps it is but a colossal conceit that prompts me to offer thisvolume to those who stutter and stammer as I did. Yet, I cannotbut believe that almost twenty years' personal experience as astammerer plus more than twenty-eight years' experience in curingspeech 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 runthe whole gamut of mockery, humiliation and failure. Youunderstand the stammerer's feelings, his mental processes and hispeculiarities.
And when you add to this more than a quarter of a century, everywaking hour of which has been spent in alleviating the stammerer'sdifficulty—and successfully, too—you have a ground-work offirst-hand information that tends toward facts instead of fictionand toward practice instead of theory.
These are my qualifications.
I have spent a life-time in studying stammering, stuttering andkindred speech defects. I have written this book out of thefullness of that experience—I might almost say out of my dailywork. I have made no attempt at literary style or rhetoricalexcellence and while the work may be homely in expression theinformation it contains is definite and positive—and what is moreimportant—it is authoritative.
I hope the reader will find the book useful—yes, and helpful. Ihope he will find in it the way to Freedom of Speech—hisbirthright and the birthright of every man.
BENJAMIN NATHANIEL BOGUE
Indianapolis September, 1929
PART I - MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER
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Chapter I - Starting Life Under a Handicap
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I was laughed at for nearly twenty years because I stammered. Ifound school a burden, college a practical impossibility and lifea misery because of my affliction.
I was born in Wabash county, Indiana, and as far back as I canremember, there was never a time when I did not stammer orstutter. So far as I know, the halting utterance came with thefirst word I spoke and for almost twenty years this difficultycontinued to dog me relentlessly.
When six years of age, I went to the little school house down theroad, little realizing what I was to go through with there beforeI left.
Previous to the time I entered school, those around me were myfamily, my relatives and my friends—people who were very kind andconsiderate, who never spoke of my difficulty in my presence, andcertainly never laughed at me.
At school, it was quite another matter. It was fun for the otherboys to hear me speak and it was common pastime with them to getme to talk whenever possible. They would jibe and jeer—and thenask, "What did you say? Why don't you learn to talk English?"Their best entertainment was to tease and mock me until I becameangry, taunt me when I did, and ridicule me at every turn.
It was not only in the school yard and going to and from schoolthat I suffered—but also in class. When I got up to recite, whata spectacle I made, hesitating over every other word, stumblingalong, gasping for breath, waiting while speech returned to me.And how they laughed at me—for then I was helpless to defendmyself. True, my teachers tried to be kind to me, but that did notmake me talk normally like other children, nor did it alwaysprevent 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 becauseI disliked to go to school, but because I was sure to meet some ofmy taunting comrades, sure to be humiliated and laughed at becauseI stammered. And having reached the school room I had to face theprospect of failing every time I stood up on my feet and tried torecite.
There were four things I looked forward to with positive dread—the trip to school, the recitations in class, recess in the schoolyard and the trip home again. It makes me shudder even now tothink of those days—the dread with which I left that home of mineevery school day morning, the nervous strain, the torment andtorture, and the constant fear of failure which never left me.Imagine my thoughts as I left parents and friends to face theribald 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 throughrecess? 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 thehours dragged by, I would wonder, "Will this day NEVER end? Will INEVER get out of this?"
Such was my life in school. And such is the daily life ofthousands of boys and hundreds of girls—a life of dread, ofconstant fear, of endless worry and unceasing nervousness.
But, as I look back at the boys and girls who helped to make lifemiserable for me in school, I feel for them only kindness. I bearno malice. They did no more than their fathers and mothers, manyof them, would have done. They little realized what they weredoing. They had no intention to do me personal injury, thoughthere is no question in my mind but that they made my troubleworse. They did not know how terribly they were punishing me. Theysaw in my affliction only fun, while I saw in it—only misery.
Chapter II - My First Attempt to Be Cured
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I can remember very clearly the positive fear which alwaysaccompanied a visit to our friends or neighbors, or the advent ofvisitors at my home. Many a time I did not have what I desired toeat be