a straight-forward, practical and
common-sense view of the subject.

The belief that the child will outgrow the malady often springs out of
the tendency of the stammerer to be better and worse by turns, a
condition which is fully described and explained in the chapter on the
Intermittent Tendency. There is always present in any case of
stammering the opportunity for a cessation of the trouble for a short
period of time. The visible condition is changeable and it is this
particular aspect of the disorder that renders it deceptive and
dangerous, for many, who find themselves talking fairly well for a
short period, believe that they are on the road to relief, whereas they
are simply in a position where their trouble is about to return upon
them in greater force than ever.

From the nature of the impediment--lack of co-ordination between the
brain and the organs of speech--stammering cannot be outgrown--no more
so than the desire to eat or to talk or to sleep.

Back of that statement, there is a very sound scientific reason that
explains why stammering cannot be outgrown. Stammering is destructive.
It tears down but cannot build up. Every time the stammerer attempts to
speak and fails, the failure tears out a certain amount of his
power-of-will. And since it is impossible for him to speak fluently
except on rare occasions, this loss of will-power and confidence takes
place every time he attempts to speak, so that with each successive
failure, his power to speak correctly becomes steadily lessened. The
case of a stammerer might be compared to a road in which a deep rut has
been worn. Each time a wagon passes through this rut, it becomes
deeper. The stammerer has no more chance of outgrowing his trouble than
the road has of outgrowing the rut.

Dr. Alexander Melville Bell recognizes the absolute certainty of the
progress of stammering and the impossibility of outgrowing the
difficulty, when he states in his work, PRINCIPLES OF SPEECH (page 234):

"If the stammerer or stutterer were brought under treatment before the
spasmodic habit became established, his cure would be much easier than
after the malady has become rooted in his muscular and nervous system."

To the stammerer or stutterer or the parents of a stammering child,
experience brings no truer lesson than this: Stammering cannot be
outgrown; danger lurks behind delay.

CHAPTER VII

THE EFFECT ON THE MIND

It is hardly necessary to describe to the sta