dn't
go to sleep, for singing through my brain was that sentence, "Begin
where the others leave off and find out how to succeed!"

Right then and there I made the resolve that resulted in my curing
myself. "I WILL do it," I said, "I will begin where the others leave
off--and I WILL SUCCEED!!" Then and there I determined to master the
principles of speech, to chart the methods that had been used by
others, to find their defects, to locate the cause of stammering, to
find out how to remove that cause and remove it from myself, so that I,
like the others whom I so envied, could talk freely and fluently.

That resolution--that determination which first fired me that evening
never left me. It marked the turning point in my whole life. I was no
longer dependent upon others, no longer looking to physicians or
elocution teachers or hypnotists to cure me of stammering. I was
looking to myself. If I was to be cured, then I must be the one to do
it. This responsibility sobered me. It intensified my determination. It
emphasized in my own mind the need for persistent effort, for a
constant striving toward this one thing. And absorbed with this idea,
living and working toward this one end, I began my work.

CHAPTER VIII

BEGINNING WHERE OTHERS HAD LEFT OFF

From the moment that my resolution took shape, my plans were all laid
with one thing in mind--to cure myself of stammering. I determined,
first of all, to master the principles of speech. I remembered very
well, indeed, the admonition of Prof. J. J. Mills, President of Earlham
College, on the day I left the institution. "You have been a
hard-working student," he said, "but your success will never be
complete until you learn to talk as others talk. Cure your stammering
at any cost." That was the thing I had determined to do. And having
determined upon that course, I resolved to let nothing swerve me from
it.

I began the study of anatomy. I studied the lungs, the throat, the
brain--nothing escaped me. I pursued my studies with the avidity of the
medical student wrapped up in his work. I read all the books that had
been published on the subject of stammering. I sought eagerly for
translations of foreign books on the subject. I lived in the libraries.
I studied late at night and arose early in the morning, that I might be
at my work again. It absorbed me. I thought of the subject by day and
dreamed of it by night. It was never out of my mind. I was living it,
breathin