That sounds simple. But if it is as simple as it sounds, why is it that so many in the past have failed to cure stammering and stuttering? Why have so many so-called methods of cure passed into the discard? The answer is, they were based on the wrong foundation. They struck at the effects and not at the cause of the trouble. And as a result, the methods failed. These so-called methods have aimed at many different effects. One method, for instance, had as its theory that if you could cure the nervousness, the stammering would magically disappear. The unfortunate sufferer was doped with vile-tasting bitters and nerve medicines, so-called, in the hope that his nervous system would respond to treatment. But the nerves could not be quieted and the nervous system built up until the cause of the nervousness--which was stammering--was removed. There was a time, too, and it has not been so long ago, when the craze was on for using surgery as a cure-all for stammering. Terrible butchery was performed in the name of surgery--the patient's tongue sometimes being slitted or notched, and other foolish and cruel subterfuges improvised in an effort to cure the stammering. Needless to say, there was no cure found in such methods. There is no chance of curing a mental defect by slitting the tongue and the absurdities of that "butchering period" which have now passed away, are numbered among the mistakes of those who committed them. A lack of thoroughness marked the later attempts to cure stammering. One method was based, for instance, solely upon correct breathing. There is no doubt that correct breathing is very vital both to the stammerer and the non-stammerer, if they are to speak fluently and well. But breath-control does not even begin to solve the problem of curing stammering. It is but an element, and a small element, in the proper articulation of words. And however well this plan of breath-control might have succeeded, it could never have succeeded in really curing stuttering and stammering. Most of these ill-advised efforts and half-baked methods sprang up, not as a result of sound knowledge but rather as a result of the lack of it. In fact, looking back at the manner in which the stammerer was treated for stammering under these methods, we can see now that nothing but the most profound ignorance of the fundamental principles underlying the art of speaking could have made it possible for these misguided instructors to pass out as science the jargon and hodge-podge which they did try to pass off as scientific knowledge. The absurdities propounded in the name of stammering cures were too numerous even to enumerate in this volume.