“My own personal observance and trial of Mr. Fletcher’s method of attaining his surprising efficiency, strengthened by my observation of the test-subjects of Professors Chittenden and Fisher who have come under my care meantime, lead me to endorse the method as not only practical but agreeable. As Mr. Fletcher states, both the mental and mechanical factors in selecting and ingesting food are important, the natural result of the care being a wealth of energy for expression in physical exercise.” FLETCHERISM So much for Horace Fletcher’s own case. Yet when he first announced his discovery, his own family laughed at him, and the medical world called him crank. But by quiet, sane, persistent work—by applying to the propaganda of his idea the same methods that had brought him success in business, he succeeded in impressing the scientific world with the value of his method. An extensive literature has grown up around Mr. Fletcher’s own books. The most important medical bodies in Europe and America have invited him to lecture before them. Hospitals in larger cities have printed his own code of the rules of mastication for distribution. And no large sheet of paper was required, for the whole system could be printed on a postal card, and room would be left for a picture of its author. Why is complete mastication the best way of eating? Why does its practice lead to recovery of lost health, or increase of health; to increase of strength, to increase of endurance. Is it not a very tedious method, and thus of more trouble than its promised benefits are worth? Does it not waste time? Does it not lead to loss of enjoyment of food? These are a few of the questions which a discussion of Fletcherism invariably arouses. We speak with a deep conviction of truth when we say that Fletcherism leads to saving of time, instead of loss of time; that it brings increase of sensuous enjoyment of food instead of decrease of it; and that if it is tedious or a bore, then it is not Fletcherizing. The very essence of Fletcherism is the dropping of worry, the elimination of stress and strain. If you do as Fletcher says, instead of doing as somebody says that Fletcher says, you will chew for taste, and not for time; you will take a crust of bread, or a morsel of potato, for instance, into your mouth and roll it with your tongue, and press it against the roof of your mouth, and pass it to and fro, and crunch it, and crush it; and all the while you will not be counting the chews, nor even thinking about chewing, but on the contrary you will be thinking of the taste of the morsel, and seeking that taste—and finding it.