It was this man who first brought home to me the fact that principles of speech are constant, that they never change and that every person who talks normally follows out the same principles of speech, while every person who stutters or stammers violates these principles of speech.  That is the basis of sound procedure for the cure of stammering and I must acknowledge my indebtedness to this sincere old gentleman who did so much for me in the way of knowledge, even though he did but little for me in the way of results.

After leaving Philadelphia, I visited Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, New York, Boston and other eastern cities, searching for a cure, but did not find it.  I was benefited very little.  These experiences, however, all possessed a certain value, although I did not know it at the time.  They taught me the things which would not work and by a simple process of elimination I later found the things which would.

Finally, however, having become disgusted with my eastern trip, I bought a ticket for home and boarded the train more nearly convinced than ever that I had an incurable case of stammering.

Some time after trying my experiment with the eastern schools, I saw the advertisement of a professor from Chicago saying that he would be at Fort Wayne, Indiana, (which was 40 miles from my home), for a week.

He was there.  So was I. But to my sorrow.  I paid him twenty dollars for which he taught me a few simple breathing and vocal exercises, most of which I already knew by heart, having been drilled in them time and again.  This fellow was like so many others who claimed to cure stammering—­he was in the business just because there were stammerers to cure, and not because he knew anything about it.  He treated the effects of the trouble and did not attempt to remove the cause.  The fact of the matter is, I doubt whether he knew anything about the cause.

Then one Sunday while reading a Cincinnati Sunday newspaper, I ran across an advertisement of a School of Elocution, in which was the statement, “Stammering Positively Cured!” Whenever I saw a sign “Vocal Culture” I became interested, so I clipped the advertisement, corresponded with the school and not many Sundays later, being able to secure excursion rates to Cincinnati, I made the trip and prepared to begin my work.

The cost of the course was only fifty dollars and I thought I would he getting cured mighty cheap if I succeeded.  So I gave this school a “whirl” with the idea of going hack home in a short time cured—­to the surprise of my family and friends.  But I was doomed to disappointment.  I took the twenty lessons, but went home stammering as badly as ever.  You can imagine how I felt as the Big Four train whistled at the Wabash river just before pulling into the Wabash station, where I was to get off.