METHODS NECESSARILY THREE-FOLD: The cure of stammering and stuttering can be wrought only by a method that is three-fold-that attacks all of the un-normal conditions of the stammerer simultaneously and eradicates them in unison. It would be of little avail, for instance, to build up perfect breath control, and leave the stammerer in a mental state where he was continually harassed by a fear of failure, by a continual self-consciousness and irritated by a deep-seated nervousness. And it would be of just as little use to try to remove that self-consciousness, fear of failure and nervousness without removing the cause of the stammering. In other words, when the successful method of curing stammering is spoken of as being threefold in purpose, it is meant that this method must build up the physical being, must achieve perfect mental equilibrium and must link up the physical with the mental in perfect harmony. A permanent cure can rest on no other foundation than perfect restoration to a truly normal mental and physical condition. When this has been accomplished and when the synchronization of brain and speech organs has been brought about, the muscles of speech do not hesitate in responding to a brain message for the utterance of a word. There is no longer any sticking, any loose or hurried repetition. In other words, perfect speech now comes as a logical consequence. SPEECH SPECIALIST SHOULD HAVE STAMMERED: It is very important that the speech expert who would promulgate a method for the eradication of stammering should have, at one time or another, stammered himself. It is a well-known fact that the imagination cannot conjure up an image of something that has never been experienced. If you had been born blind, you would have no mental picture of any color, no matter how much you might have heard about it. Still your imagination might be a most prolific one. The utmost feat of the human imagination is to combine mental pictures to form still other images which are impossible or absurd or which in their entirety have not been experienced. In other words, new combinations of images are possible, but an entirely new or basic picture is beyond the power of the imagination to create. So, with the specialist who would cure stuttering and stammering. It is impossible for the man who has never stammered or stuttered to know the fear that grips the sufferer when he thinks of speaking. It is impossible for one who has never stammered to imagine what this fear is like or to know the feeling that accompanies it. For that reason, it is important that the man who attempts to eradicate speech defects should have been afflicted himself in order that his experience may have been acquired first-hand--that the suffering may have been felt and all of the conditions and situations of the stammerer may be as familiar to him as to his student.