misdirected attempt which naturally had no chances
for success.

I learned that prizes will never cure stammering. I found out too,
something I have never since forgotten: that the man, woman or child
who stammers needs no inducement to cause him to desire to be cured,
because the change from his condition as a stammerer to that of a
nonstammerer is of more inducement to the sufferer than all the money
you could offer him. I have never yet seen a man, woman or child who
wanted to stammer or stutter.

The offer of prizes doing no good, I took long trips to get my mind off
the affliction. I did everything in my power, worked almost day and
night, exerted every effort I could command--it was all in vain.

The idea that I would finally outgrow my difficulty was strengthened in
the minds of my parents and friends by the fact that there were times
when my impediment seemed almost to disappear, but to our surprise and
disappointment, it always came back again, each time in a more
aggravated form; each time with a stronger hold upon me than ever
before.

I found out, then, one of the fundamental characteristics of
stammering--its intermittent tendency. In other words, I discovered
that a partial relief from the difficulty was one of the true symptoms
of the malady. And I learned further that this relief is only temporary
and not what we first thought it to be, viz: a sign that the disorder
was leaving.

CHAPTER III

MY SEARCH CONTINUES

My parents' efforts to have me cured, however, did not cease with my
visit to the medicine man. We were still looking for something that
would bring relief. My teacher, Miss Cora Critchlow, handed me an
advertisement one day, telling me of a man who claimed to be able to
cure stammering by mail. In the hope that I would get some good from
the treatment, my parents sent this mail order man a large sum of
money. In return for this I was furnished with instructions to do a
number of useless things, such as holding toothpicks between my teeth,
talking through my nose, whistling before I spoke a word, and many
other foolish things. It was at this time that I learned once and for
all, the imprudence of throwing money away on these mail order "cures,"
so-called, and I made up my mind to bother no more with this man and
his kind.

So far as the mail order instructions were concerned, they were crude
and unscientific--merely a hodge-podge of pseudo-technical phraseology
and crass igno