g, I heard
of a clairvoyant who could, by looking at a person, tell his name, age,
occupation, place of residence, etc., and could cure all diseases and
afflictions including stammering. So I thought I would give him a
trial. He claimed to work through a "greater power"--whatever that
was--and so I paid him his fee to see the "greater power" work--and to
be cured of stammering, as per promise. But there was nothing doing in
the line of a cure--all I got in trying to be cured, was another
chapter added to my book of experience.

Following this experience, I tried an osteopath, whose methods, however
good they might have been, affected merely the physical organs and
could not hope to reach the real cause of my trouble. I do not doubt
that this man was entirely sincere in explaining his own science to me
in a way that led me to build up hopes of relief from that method. He
simply did not understand stammering and its causes and was therefore
not prepared to treat it.

I was told of another doctor who claimed to be able to cure stammering.
When I called to see him, he had me wait in his reception room for
nearly two hours, for the purpose, I presume, of giving me the
impression that he was a very busy man. Then he called me into his
private consultation room, where he apparently had all of the modern
and up-to-date surgical instruments. He put me through a thorough
examination, after which he said that the only thing to cure me was a
surgical operation to have my tonsils removed. I was not willing to
consent to the use of the knife, so therefore the operation was never
performed.

Since that time, however, the practice of operating on children
especially for the removal of adenoids and tonsils has become very
popular and quite frequently this is the remedy prescribed for various
and sundry ailments of childhood. In no case must a parent expect to
eradicate stuttering or stammering by the removal of the tonsils. The
operation, beneficial as it may be in other ways, does not prevent the
child from stammering--for the operation does not remove the cause of
the stammering--that cause is mental, not physical.

CHAPTER VII

THE BENEFIT OF MANY FAILURES

I had now tried upwards of fifteen different methods for the cure of my
stammering. I had tried the physician; the surgeon; the elocution
teacher; the hypnotic specialist; the osteopath; a clairvoyant; a
mail-order scheme; the world's greatest speech specialist--so