"BEN BOGUE'S BOY
WHO STUTTERS" (as I was known) and had decided that when I was in his
audience a hint or two on the virtues of his wonderful remedy in cases
of stammering, would be sufficient to extract a dollar from me for a
tryout.

These experiences, however, were valuable to me, even though they were
costly, for they taught me a badly-needed lesson, to wit: That drugs
and medicines are not a cure for stammering.

Many of the people who came in contact with me, and those who talked
the matter over with my parents, said that I would outgrow the trouble.
"All that is necessary," remarked one man, "is for him to forget that
he stammers, and the trouble will be gone."

This was a rather foolish suggestion and simply proved how little the
man knew about the subject. In the first place, a stammerer cannot
forget his difficulty--who can say that he would be cured if he did?
You might as well say to a man holding a hot poker, "If you will only
forget that the poker is hot, it will be cool." It takes something more
than forgetfulness to cure stammering.

The belief held by both my parents and myself that I would outgrow my
difficulty was one of the gravest mistakes we ever made. Had I followed
the advice of others who believed in the outgrowing theory it
eventually would have caused me to become a confirmed stammerer,
entirely beyond hope of cure.

Today, as a result of twenty-eight years' daily contact with
stammerers, I know that stammering cannot be outgrown. The man who
suggests that it is possible to cure stammering by outgrowing it is
doing a great injustice to the stammerer, because he is giving him a
false hope--in fact the most futile hope that any stammerer ever had. I
wish I could paint in the sky, in letters of fire, the truth that
"Stammering cannot be outgrown," because this, of all things, is the
most frequent pitfall of the stammerer, his greatest delusion and one
of the most prolific causes of continued suffering. I know whereof I
speak, because I tried it myself. I know how many different people held
up to me the hope that I would outgrow it.

My father offered me a valuable shotgun if I would stop stammering. My
mother offered me money, a watch and a horse and buggy. These
inducements made me strain every nerve to stop my imperfect utterance,
but all to no avail. At this time I knew nothing of the underlying
principles of speech and any effort which I made to stop my stammering
was merely a crude,