Its Cause and Cure PART I MY LIFE AS A STAMMERER CHAPTER I STARTING LIFE UNDER A HANDICAP I was laughed at for nearly twenty years because I stammered. I found school a burden, college a practical impossibility and life a misery because of my affliction. I was born in Wabash county, Indiana, and as far back as I can remember, there was never a time when I did not stammer or stutter. So far as I know, the halting utterance came with the first word I spoke and for almost twenty years this difficulty continued to dog me relentlessly. When six years of age, I went to the little school house down the road, little realizing what I was to go through with there before I left. Previous to the time I entered school, those around me were my family, my relatives and my friends--people who were very kind and considerate, who never spoke of my difficulty in my presence, and certainly never laughed at me. At school, it was quite another matter. It was fun for the other boys to hear me speak and it was common pastime with them to get me to talk whenever possible. They would jibe and jeer--and then ask, "What did you say? Why don't you learn to talk English?" Their best entertainment was to tease and mock me until I became angry, taunt me when I did, and ridicule me at every turn. It was not only in the school yard and going to and from school that I suffered--but also in class. When I got up to recite, what a spectacle I made, hesitating over every other word, stumbling along, gasping for breath, waiting while speech returned to me. And how they laughed at me--for then I was helpless to defend myself. True, my teachers tried to be kind to me, but that did not make me talk normally like other children, nor did it always prevent 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 because I disliked to go to school, but because I was sure to meet some of my taunting comrades, sure to be humiliated and laughed at because I stammered. And having reached the school room I had to face the prospect of failing every time I stood up on my feet and tried to recite. There were four things I looked forward to with positive dread--the trip to school, the recitations in class, recess in the school yard and the trip home again. It makes me shudder even now to think of those days--the dread with which I left that home of mine every school day morning, the nervous strain, the torment and torture, and the constant fear of failure which never left me. Imagine my thoughts as I left parents and friends to face the ribald 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 through recess? What is the easiest way home?"