ing to strangers than in talking to friends or relatives while in
other cases, the condition is exactly reversed. A stutterer or
stammerer almost always experiences difficulty in speaking over the
telephone. One experimenter has shown, however, that a stammerer can
talk perfectly over the telephone so long as the receiver hook is
depressed and there is no connection with another person at the other
end of the line. This experimenter shows that immediately the receiver
hook is released and a connection is established, the halting,
stumbling utterance begins.

These peculiarities of stuttering and stammering for many years puzzled
investigators and were, in fact, finally responsible for arriving at
the true cause of stammering.

Almost every stammerer seeks for an explanation of these peculiar
manifestations. Why is it, for instance, that a stammerer can sing
without difficulty, although he cannot talk? This is one of the best
evidences that could be produced to show that stammering is the result
of a lack of mental control. The stammerer who can sing without
difficulty has no organic or inherent defect in the vocal organs, that
is sure. If the stammerer can sing, and if this proves that he has no
organic defect, then it follows logically that the cause of his trouble
is mental and not physical.

TALK WHEN ALONE: The fact that a stammerer can talk without hesitation
when alone and that he can talk to animals may be explained by a very
simple illustration--any stammerer can try this experiment on one of
his friends who does not stammer. He can prove that the reflex, or what
might be termed subconscious movements of the bodily organs are more
nearly normal than the same movements consciously controlled. Take, for
instance, the regular beating of the pulse. Let anyone who does not
stammer (it makes no difference in trying this experiment whether the
person stammers or not, save that we are trying to prove that the
condition may be brought about in one who is not a stammerer) feel his
own pulse for sixty seconds. Let him be thoroughly conscious of this
effort to learn the rapidity of its beating. If a disinterested
observer could record the pulse as normally beating and the pulse under
the conscious influence of the mind, it would be found that the pulse
under the conscious effort is beating either more rapidly or more
slowly or that it is not beating as regularly as in the case of
unconscious or reflex action.

This sam