RC" 
 
 SPEECH-HESITATION 
 
 E.J.Ellery Thorpe. 
 
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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, 
 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY. 
 
 WORCESTER, MASS. 
 
 I have just read " Speech Hesitation " by Mrs. E. J. 
 Thorpe, with much interest. 
 
 Her method has the distinct advantage over nearly all 
 others that I have known in that it is laid on a definite, and, 
 as I think, a correct conception of what are probably the 
 most common causes of the difficulty and seeks by a ration- 
 al and systematic method to remove them. I am not sur- 
 prised at the success she has met with, becanse, too, of the 
 careful study of individual cases upon which she bases her 
 treatment. 
 
 The-whole subject is one of the most peculiar and scien- 
 tifically interesting in all the field of education. I am 
 heartily in* accord with her conviction that one of the most 
 urgent needs in view of the large per cent, afflicted, and of 
 the kind of treatment needed, is for an institution where 
 this very grave and painful, but most curable affliction of 
 childhood and youth can be treated with conditions so con- 
 trolled as to make the prospect of cure most favorable. 
 
 Wealthy philanthropists, and, if need be, legislators 
 should be appealed to. 
 
 May 30, 1899. G. STANLEY HALL. 
 
SPEECH HESITATION 
 
 BY 
 
 E. J. ELLERY THORPE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 EDGAR S. WERNER PUBLISHING & SUPPLY CO. 
 
 1900 
 
i 
 
 
 Copyrighit 
 
 1898 
 BY E. J. E. THORPE 
 
TO MY PUPILS, 
 
 WHO HAVE FURNISHED THE MEANS BY WHICH 
 
 THESE TRUTHS HAVE BEEN EVOLVED, 
 THIS SMALL VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 E. J. E. THORPE. 
 
 Newton Centre, Mass. 
 
 
SPEECH-HESITATION 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is curious to observe how a man of a clear, sharp 
 and 1 powerful mind and reasoning according to sound 
 and correct principles may yet, owing to his defective 
 knowledge of facts, arrive at conclusions directly op- 
 posed to truth. MAX MULLER. 
 
 A LOVE of dramatic reading in early youth, and the 
 foundation in general voice-training laid by sem- 
 inary and normal school drill in singing and in oratory, 
 together with membership in the New York Harmonic 
 Society and in choirs, including that of Plymouth Church ; 
 association and practice with graduates of the best schools 
 of oratory, notably with one who had studied under the 
 famous James E. Murdoch, and who brought to me the 
 best thought of that great actor and elocutionist, were the 
 means by which my attention was called to the physical 
 affection that is the subject of this book. 
 
 Together my friend and I studied the various methods 
 of breathing, practiced the stroke of the glottis and the 
 formation of sound at the front of the mouth, and gave 
 much attention to articulation. But speech-affection at 
 that time was not a matter that engaged the attention of 
 the general educator. In my several years' teaching in 
 one of the largest public schools of New York City 
 
6 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 the daily attendance in its primary department avera- 
 ging over 1,000 and where the teachers constantly met 
 to discuss educational needs I observed that no allusion 
 was ever made to any case of hesitancy in speech that 
 might exist among the pupils. 
 
 It is now more than thirty years since I began to study 
 my first case of this affection, and it seemed to my inex- 
 perienced mind like a new form of a very old difficulty, 
 one that would yield readily to the ordinary vocal drilL 
 In utter ignorance that this was one of the greatest prob- 
 lems, that medical men and philosophers had studied it 
 carefully, that many theories had been advanced and much 
 done to find the cause and the remedy, I set to work with 
 the greatest enthusiasm. I reasoned that as the subject 
 failed to produce certain sounds, therefore he must learn 
 their nature, and practice until he could produce them. 
 This reasoning was false, as was afterward seen. 
 
 The breathing-exercises and articulations were prac- 
 ticed diligently, in full expectation of complete success. 
 The contraction of the vocal cords, which prevented the 
 formation of the vowel-sounds, and the want of control 
 of lips and tongue were supposed to be caused by weak- 
 ness; therefore, lips, tongue, and vocal cords were exer- 
 cised in the expectation that increased strength would 
 give greater freedom of action. The theory was that 
 clearness in speaking must come through phonic drill; 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 7 
 
 but the more conscientious the training, the less capable 
 were the vocal organs of doing their work. 
 
 Great attention was given to the refractory sounds, 
 always supposing them to be consonants. They were 
 practiced before and after the vowels; words in which 
 they and their combinations occurred were woven into 
 sentences, and readings were selected for this especial pur- 
 pose. When a half day had been spent in this way, the 
 pupil was sent out to make a trial of his strength on some 
 errand or by the use of these particular words among 
 his playmates. The invariable report on his return would 
 be: 
 
 "I could not speak the words. They never were so 
 hard before." 
 
 "But," I would say, "you have said them to me hun- 
 dreds of times. Why could you not say them then ?" 
 
 "I do not know, but it was impossible to speak them." 
 
 Slowly and vaguely the truth began to dawn upon my 
 mind that this kind of drill was emphasizing and increas- 
 ing, rather than decreasing, the difficulty, and, conse- 
 quently, adding to a fear that the pupil had of trying to 
 make these sounds. I began to see that, once made, he 
 could go on repeating them indefinitely; but that after 
 an interval they were as difficult as before. 
 
 There was a baffling, inexplainable mystery in it that 
 
8 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 surprised and interested me. I felt assured that someone 
 must know all about it. My friends, the elocutionists, 
 were consulted, and their opinions agreed perfectly with 
 all that had been done. One of the best authorities said 
 to me: "The breathing must be corrected, and there is 
 but one way to form each sound. This must be learned. 
 These two things accomplished, anyone must be able to 
 talk." As time went on, quite a number having the diffi- 
 culty trusted themselves to my experiments, and some 
 really gained confidence and were improved. Some per- 
 sons can by such drill go so far as to declaim, perhaps, in 
 public. This accounts for a great many so-called "cures," 
 and assists greatly in filling tables of statistics. Some- 
 one has said : "There are three kinds of untruths : Lies, 
 white lies, and statistics;" and when statistics are made 
 on this basis, we may well question their validity. 
 
 It is not unusual that one can speak upon the platform 
 who in private converses with the greatest difficulty. 
 He can do something. The average person who hesitates 
 can talk or declaim, at times, but the contraction is there, 
 always ready to assert itself. While that is true, he is 
 practically no better, because nothing new has been in- 
 troduced, and the work, on the whole, is not satisfactory. 
 My work was pursued as one works upon a puzzle. At 
 times a clue would seem to be found, only to disappear 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. g 
 
 and leave the matter as dark as before. The questions 
 were beginning to arise : "If these persons can sometimes 
 speak words voluntarily and can repeat them after they 
 have been spoken by others, do they need to learn their 
 construction? If the breathing is perfect before the at- 
 tempt to speak, is it the breathing that affects the speech, 
 or the speech that affects the breathing?" 
 
 At this stage of investigation the Centennial took me to 
 Philadelphia, and a call was made upon Mme. Seller. I 
 had read her "Voice in Speaking" and "Voice in Sing- 
 ing," and knew her by reputation as one skilled in voice- 
 training, and also that she had received some pupils who 
 needed instruction in speaking. She talked freely upon 
 the subject. She said that although the voice in singing 
 was her special work, she had by request taken pupils who 
 needed instruction in speaking. Her plan was to train the 
 pupil first upon the least difficult sounds, and when these 
 were conquered he went on to those that were more dif- 
 ficult, and was drilled in this way until he had mastered 
 them all. 
 
 Then I asked: "What does he do when away from 
 yon? Can he make these sounds then?" 
 
 She said: "I have never inquired. If he can speak 
 every word when with me, why can he not do the same 
 when away from me?" 
 
10 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 I replied : "That is the special difficulty. They all can 
 read and talk with me after a certain time, but when 
 away from me the sounds are as difficult as before, per- 
 haps more so." 
 
 Then she said : "You have gone farther in this matter 
 than I have, and it is of no use to talk with me." 
 
 Mme. Seiler invited me to be present while she gave a 
 lesson in vocal music. It differed from anything in vocal 
 training than I had heard before. She said, "You 
 must make a tunnel of your body ; there must be no stop 
 along the way." I saw that those who hesitate in speak- 
 ing do stop along the way, and that the ordinary theory 
 of diaphragmatic breathing and speaking is a theory 
 only when coupled with phonic drill. 
 
 Up to this time the difficulty seemed to be entirely with 
 the consonants, but a case came under my care in which 
 the vowels stopped in the throat. The muscles of thj 
 throat closed and prevented the possibility of making 
 any sound. Plainly the sharp attack upon the vowel with 
 the throat-muscles, which had been a conspicuous part 
 of my education, would never do in a case like this, and 
 I groped my way tow r ard the open passage theory, first 
 experimenting upon myself. Yet so strong was the in- 
 fluence of long training and deeply rooted prejudice that 
 although the effect was at least partly clear, it was ten 
 years before the old method was given up entirely. It 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 1 1 
 
 was held so long, partly because the truth dawned so 
 slowly and partly because of the question: "If this is 
 given up, what remains to be done ?" 
 
 My efforts in articulative training ended with a boy who 
 told me that a certain sound was impossible to him. 
 Without letting him know, I managed to introduce that 
 sound continually; but the next day it was more trying 
 than before, and besides, other sounds, apparently easy, 
 had become suddenly difficult. That experience sufficed, 
 and ended my practice of articulative drill. Some of the 
 persons who received that drill would go away alone. 
 Perhaps they would spend a day in the woods, and work 
 upon the troublesome sounds with a fixed determination 
 that they should be conquered. What they really did was 
 to strengthen and to increase a muscular contraction that 
 was the cause of the trouble, and to increase the dread of 
 sounds that had become already objects of fear. It 
 would be well if the work of those years could be re- 
 called; 'but as my work has led on to better methods I 
 have felt the force of Phillips Brooks's words, which were 
 of course applied to quite a different realm of thought: 
 ''Why mourn your sins? They are the stepping-stones 
 to a higher life." 
 
 Lengthening the sound is practically singing, and with 
 few exceptions the persons who hesitate in speaking are 
 able to sing. Length without strength is a drawl, and 
 
1 2 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 drawling is not speaking in the best manner. In speak- 
 ing, we utilize the outgoing breath, but are not expected 
 to lengthen that breath much beyond its ordinary use. 
 It is necessary for some persons to work deliberately at 
 first until they have acquired a habit of placing the energy 
 correctly; but we must not rely so much upon the means 
 as to forget the object to be attained. The door of truth 
 opens slowly, and often we think that we have reached the 
 main entrance when we have found only the guide-board 
 th;>t points to the outer portal. 
 
 New difficulties arose. Practicing articulations in 
 suc'h a way 'as to eliminate the effort introduced an abnor- 
 mal care and increased the fear, w ; hich was always a se 
 rious complication. Besides, the words lacked charac- 
 ter; the life seemed to be gone from them. There was 
 constant danger of being asked to repeat, an experience 
 that the pupil always greatly dreaded. The care exer- 
 cised in lessening the force upon the consonants brought 
 them more prominently before the mind, and increased 
 the morbid mental condition; and if consonants were so 
 much reduced, on what were we to rely in making our- 
 selves understood ? Confident that the question must have 
 been answered by someone somewhere, all the literature 
 to be found upon the subject was thoroughly investigated. 
 In studying various methods, I was greatly assisted by 
 those published by Edgar S. Werner in his Voice Maga- 
 zine. 
 
SPEECH-HESITATION. 13 
 
 A physician has said, "The subject has not received 
 the attention it deserves from physicians." But except 
 Lord Bacon, Aristotle, Mendelssohn, and a few others, 
 those who have written upon it have been among the con- 
 spicuous physicians of their time, and each writer, almost 
 without exception, had a personal interest in finding the 
 truth. 
 
 The list of writers (including Hippocrates, 300 B. C., 
 who believed the cause to be dryness of the tongue) is 
 too long to be given here. The various causes given were 
 a lesion of the brain, nervous affections, spasm or closure 
 of the glottis, abnormal conditions of the tongue, uvula, 
 palate, pharynx, hyoid-bone, jaw or teeth, imperfect res- 
 piration, sluggish mentality, muscular debility, physical 
 influences, bad vocalization, timidity, diseased tonsils or 
 nasal cavities, paralysis, contraction of the genioglossus 
 muscles, retraction of the lingual muscles, etc. But all 
 my subsequent experience goes to prove that in eac'h par- 
 ticular, effect was mistaken for cause. As remedies, the 
 oldest practitioners used lotions, gargles and washes for 
 the tongue and the neck. Following these were eminent 
 authorities, Who practiced breathing, articulative exer- 
 cises and rhythm. During the year 1841 surgical opera- 
 tions raged till stopped by government authority. 
 
 Mechanical contrivances, beginning with the pebbles 
 
14 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 of Demosthenes and continuing in the fork of Itard, 
 the ivory plates of Colombat, the whalebone of Male- 
 bouche, the piece of wood under the tongue by Dr. 
 Klencke, and Bates's appliances, are in some form in use 
 at the present day. 
 
 The use of tricks began in 1837 with the American 
 method of Mrs. Leigh, which was striking the tongue 
 against the roof of the mouth. Dr. Arnott suggested 
 placing short e before every word. Dr. Voisin in 1837 
 pressed 'the thumb upon the chin. Dr. Graves (1848) 
 suggested holding a stick in the right hand, with which 
 to strike the forefinger of the left. The object of the 
 trick being to direct the attention of the person from 
 himself, any movement not in general use would serve 
 the purpose. The marketable tricks of the present time 
 are : Pressing together the thumb and the finger, winking, 
 waving the hand, turning a roll of paper, throwing back 
 the head, etc. These are sold as great secrets. They are 
 lon'g-lived, because human nature loves mystery. 
 
 In this medley of opinion the question was, What, if 
 anything, is right? for the supporters of each theory 
 were in their day of highest standing and reputation. 
 And again, can rhythm, any vocal gymnastic or sur- 
 gical operation or trick, remove chorea, lesion o'f the 
 brain, or spasm of the glottis? Dr. Chigon (1838) 
 asked, "How can a disease be removed before we know 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 1 5 
 
 the cause ?" Some physicians said, "We do not know the 
 cause, and we never can know ; all attempts to relieve the 
 difficulty are therefore in the nature of a fraud." Others 
 said: "We do not know what 'hesitation of speech is, 
 but we are waiting for the light." 
 
 While endeavoring from this confusion of authority 
 to extract some general law, a clergyman friend lost his 
 voice 'because of a serious throat-affection, and found it 
 through Mme. Setter's instruction; not in the harsh, hard 
 tones that were symptomatic of all that was incorrect, but 
 in tones beautiful and melodious, as a voice must be, 
 formed upon nature's plan. As he described in detail 
 the process of instruction that he 'had received, there 
 came to my mind the dawning of a great light, which has 
 steadily increased. It occurred to me to make a compar- 
 ison between the symptoms in his case and those of some 
 upon whom I was experimenting for speech-trouble. 
 They seemed alike in so many respects that a trial of the 
 process, so far as I was able to reproduce it, was made 
 upon my pupils with entire success. What was 
 done was to remove all undue contraction from 
 the throat and to strengthen the breathing-muscles. A 
 close comparison of every new case with every other 
 showed the inevitable symptom of throat-contraction. It 
 is surprising how long it may be, after a principle is ac- 
 cepted as truth, before it is clear in all its relations. But 
 
1 6 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 what was at first vague and experimental, by slow degrees 
 became clear and positive. 
 
 Nervousness always exists in this form of physical de- 
 rangement. The usual explanation was, "I hesitate be- 
 cause I am so nervous." But when relief came the pa- 
 tient would say, "I am no more nervous now than other 
 persons." The question was, Do nervousness and throat- 
 contraction exist as independent symptoms, or does one 
 cause the other, and which is the cause? The answer 
 came through a child six years old, who had St. Vitus's 
 dance. The opinion of the highest authority was that 
 the speech-irregularity 'was caused by chronic chorea; 
 therefore she could never talk. By pursuing the usual 
 plan of removing the throat-contraction, in less than 
 three months she spoke perfectly, and every trace of the 
 chorea 'had disappeared. That was several years ago,, 
 and there 'has been no return of the difficulty. The mother 
 was wise. Until the child was able to play with other 
 children without excitement, she was kept by herself, 
 and it was a year at least after iher speech was perfect be- 
 fore she was allowed to enter school. This case was 
 sufficiently marked to settle the question o/f cause and effect 
 in regard to nervousness, and all subsequent experience 
 has strengthened the position. The whole difficulty was 
 that the grasp of the breath, which should have been in 
 the breathing-muscles, was placed upon the muscles of 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. i j 
 
 the throat where the breath must pass, and with force 
 sufficient to throw the whole system into disorder. 
 
 As the years went on, a large number of cases in every 
 varying degree of severity received the treatment, whicn 
 experience was constantly rendering more certain. Some 
 of the cases were even more severe than that of the little 
 girl previously mentioned. They were of long standing, 
 and in some cases the subjects of them could not appear 
 before the world; but whenever the instructions were 
 followed, the case yielded to the treatment, and there was 
 no reason to change the opinion that throat-contraction 
 was the foundation of the difficulty, and its removal the 
 one definite aim. 
 
 But why the throat-contraction? Not infrequently 
 was reported inability properly to control the pen while 
 writing. Often persons who were physically weak and 
 who could walk but short distances would, as the effort 
 was taken from the speech, become strong and able to 
 walk for miles without fatigue. This led to a general 
 study of voices, and the amount of throat-contraction in 
 those of young children even in infants was a revela- 
 tion. 
 
 A young lady eighteen years old had been an invalid 
 all her life. At birth she was with difficulty made to 
 breathe. Her limbs were weak, and she walked and used 
 
18 - SPEECH-HESITATION. 
 
 her hands very little. She was constantly under medical 
 treatment, from which she received no permanent benefit. 
 Her voice was very weak, and she seldom spoke except in 
 answer to a question. Though her speech was free from 
 impediment, with every attempt to speak her head swayed 
 from side to side and her hands were twisted with great 
 energy. The speaking- force was focused in the muscles 
 of the neck and the 'hands, and it was those muscles that 
 were first in action when she began to speak. All that 
 she needed was a voice properly placed, and when that 
 was gained she walked miles without fatigue. Whereas 
 s'he had been unable to li'ft a cup filled with any liquid, 
 s'he could without effort raise a good-sized pitcher and 
 pour the water from it; and she could read aloud for 
 hours and talk with the utmost freedom. 
 
 A boy nine years old dragged his right foot, and the 
 right hand and arm were useless. His voice was an 
 aspirate, and his face was a mass of contractions. His 
 speech was an illustration of extreme hesitation. At 
 birth he did not breathe perceptibly for an hour. For 
 some days he made no sound, and it was a month before 
 he made what could be called a cry. He, too, needed a 
 voice, and when it came, strength came to the leg and 
 the arm, and the contraction left the face and centred in 
 the 'breathing-muscles. 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 19 
 
 A person who had become interested in these investiga- 
 tions urged visiting a hospital for children, where were 
 some cases answering this description. The symptoms 
 were the same, in a greatly exaggerated form. One boy 
 in particular was an embodied, extreme example of all 
 that had been seen in a large number of cases. Thes? 
 symptoms had been found distributed among many per- 
 sons. For instance, one was weak in the fingers ; another 
 in the legs. In one the contraction was in the wrists; 
 another, perhaps, in the jaw or the tongue. One would 
 be troubled with bronchitis ; another with throat-disease. 
 The tongue might be so large as to interfere with swal- 
 lowing. Sometimes the eye could not be fixed upon any 
 object, and often there were growths in the nasal pas- 
 sage. 
 
 With the exception of the last, all these symptoms were 
 
 concentrated in this one boy, and every one was strongly 
 
 marked. All that great strength which should have been 
 gathered in the breathing-muscles centred in the throat, 
 tongue, lower jaw and wrists. The constant movement 
 and abnormal energy centred in the jaw and the tongue 
 caused a profuse flow of saliva. The size of the tongue 
 was increased by the unusual exercise; the effort in the 
 throat caused bronchitis. The preponderance of mus- 
 cular energy went to the wrists and lower jaw and tongue, 
 
20 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 and the fingers and legs and feet were quite helpless. 
 The wrists were very strong and abnormally developed. 
 The eyes were never fixed upon any object, the shoulders 
 were lifted, and the head was never erect. The responsive 
 instinct was there, in full force, and when one spoke to 
 the child all these false centres were roused to full activ- 
 ity. 
 
 Naturally, as there was no avenue through which the 
 mind could operate, all the usual channels being barred 
 and shut off, the mind was supposed to be wanting. He 
 was laid upon a rug on the floor, and told to kick. In- 
 stantly the limp feet flew, propelled from the hips. Three 
 things were noted : First, he knew what the word "kick" 
 meant; second, he was not so much paralyzed but that 
 he could kick ; third, 'he was pleased and delighted to fol- 
 low any suggestion to the best of his ability. He had 
 repeatedly heard and understood that his case was hope- 
 less, and he eagerly caught upon even a ray of hope. 
 
 With permission from the medical committee experi- 
 ments were made upon him, and the boy's conscientious 
 spirit was a great assistance. In six weeks the symptoms 
 all were changed for the "better. In about a year he used 
 his feet, legs and hands very well. His head was erect, 
 and the condition of his eyes normal. The contraction 
 about the throat, tongue and jaw was so reduced that he 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 2 1 
 
 was able to speak quite a list of words, and connect some 
 of them. Several others at the hospital also received the 
 benefit of the training. Some were permanently benefited. 
 The teacher took what was thought would be a vaca- 
 tion, but saw no time to return, and the boy from whom 
 so much was learned, and to whom we were so much in- 
 debted, was allowed to relapse. At birth he did not 
 breathe perceptibly for two hours, and he never made a 
 vocal sound till taught by us. At first his efforts were a 
 kind of groan, directed into the lower jaw; but he under- 
 stood the aim, and kept at work, and constantly gained. 
 If I had known then, as I do now, that the natural 
 strength must exceed the unnatural, before one is safe in 
 being left to himself, probably some way would have been 
 found to complete the work. To train a voice that already 
 exists is an easier task than to create one. The wonderful 
 feature in this case was that the boy so well understood 
 and put into practice the lessons taught him. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Starting with the unquestionable truth that at any 
 moment the existing quantity of liberated nerve- 
 force, which in an inscrutable way produces in us the 
 state we call "feeling," must generate an equivalent 
 manifestation of force somewhere, it clearly follows 
 that if, of the several channels it may take, one is 
 wholly or partly^ closed, more must be taken by the 
 others; or that if two are closed, the discharge along 
 one must be more intense; and that, conversely, 
 should anything determine an unusual efflux in one di- 
 rection, there will be a diminished efflux in other di- 
 rections. Herbert Spencer. 
 
 In the universe taken as a whole, evolution of one 
 part must be at the expense of some other part. 
 Le Conte. 
 
 BREATH, held with firmness by the breathing-mus- 
 cles and released with energy, is the essential ele- 
 ment of all vocal sound. Voice, which, developed, be- 
 comes speech, begins with the life. In the first cry of 
 life there are three conditions : Inspiration, muscular 
 grasp, release ; first, the inspiration, which fills the lungs ; 
 second, the grasp of that inspiration by every muscle 
 used in breathing, or the concentration of energy, by 
 which the breath is firmly held and controlled ; third, the 
 release, by which the breath is driven against the vocal 
 cords, producing the cry, which varies in different chil- 
 dren, from a clear, full, strong, flexible and controlled 
 tone, which by its quality indicates that every muscle 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 2 $ 
 
 uses to its full capacity all the energy that nature pro- 
 vides for the purpose, to the faintest aspirate, which also 
 indicates by the varying degrees of strength the amount 
 of power unused by the breathing-muscles. 
 
 But the unused power is not lost. If turned from its 
 legitimate use in the breathing-muscles, it will certainly 
 be at work in another place. The repetition of the cry 
 by the child has been called an "acquired reflex." If the 
 cry is according to nature, every repetition strengthens 
 the entire system, working from the centre to the per- 
 iphery. But if the muscular grasp, which is the centre, 
 is weak, not only does the system suffer from the loss of 
 the legitimate exercise but the surplus energy, acting in the 
 wrong place, is a cause of derangement and disease. The 
 grasp of the breath, in order to produce vocal sound, 
 is in accord with nature's law, and if the conditions 
 are perfect, is, in every instance it is called into exercise, 
 as unstudied and unpremeditated as in the first cry of the 
 child. 
 
 The child cries because he must. It is nature's pro- 
 vision for sending life and strength into every fibre of 
 his being, and every cry is laying a foundation for future 
 use in speech and in song. As intelligence grows, the tone 
 is varied to express different emotions, followed by ges- 
 ticulations of the feet, hands and head, and these by a 
 
24 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 great deal of meaningless movement of lips and tongue. 
 
 The first definite voice or vowel sound is short u or 
 ugh. It is the natural response of the lower animal, 
 the savage and the little child, and is the radical of every 
 vowel, When properly made. The child learns articula- 
 tions, which are the refinement of gesture, by imitation, 
 and the greater his power of imitation, the earlier he 
 learns to talk. 
 
 The muscles that move the tongue and the jaw in mas- 
 tication are the same as are used in forming articulations 
 or consonants. The same stream of breath that forms 
 the vowel gives expression to the articulations, which may 
 be called the finish to the vowel-sound. 
 
 Supposing the concentration of energy in the breathing- 
 muscles to have been complete from the first cry till the 
 child begins to talk, no abnormal energy can be placed 
 upon the articulation. Therefore, it offers no obstruction 
 to the passage of the breath, because vowel and articulation 
 blend in a perfect whole, and the harmony is complete. 
 In speech, so conditioned, the tones may be low, but 
 never weak; reposeful, but always energetic; and as life 
 goes on, by constant use they can easily be adapted to 
 any requirement of public and private use. It is only from 
 the centre that the voice can expand and develop to a 
 variety of pitch and increase of compass. The founda- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 2 $ 
 
 tion for the voice, in all pulpit and platform oratory, dra- 
 matic speaking and singing, is but a broadening from the 
 current melody of the speaking-voice, which depends in 
 every case upon the perfect grasp at the centre. The 
 child who has held the perfect control of his voice from 
 the beginning until he is old enough to talk, not only has 
 established a vital power in every nerve-centre, muscle 
 and fibre of his system, but is so confirmed in that con- 
 trol that he is not likely to be affected by any subse- 
 quent influence. 
 
 The non-vocalized breath is inspiration and expiration. 
 With this, life may go on and the breathing be perfect; 
 but there can be no vocal sound without the grasp or stop 
 of the breath. We give a great deal of time to the study 
 of how best to breathe. Perhaps it would be better, did 
 we learn how to stop breathing in the best manner. The 
 grasp of the breath forms the centre of the respiratory 
 system. This is inevitable, and any degree of weakness 
 at the true centre indicates a corresponding abnormal 
 strength, first evident in the throat-muscles. The symp- 
 toms are weak, high-pitched, shrill, nasal, or harsh voices, 
 inability to read for even a few minutes without pain in 
 the throat, hoarseness, loss of voice and tendency to 
 throat-disease. Such persons may suffer from nervous- 
 ness, general weakness, or a kind of invalidism that seems 
 
->6 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 to have no explainable cause. The constant use of the 
 throat-muscles gives a tendency to lift from the true cen- 
 tre and to focus at the throat. If the contraction centres 
 at the vocal cords in sufficient force seriously to impede or 
 stop the breath, speech-hesitation in its uncomplicated 
 form will be the result. 
 
 Although, according to my observation, the contraction 
 begins at the throat-muscles, it may focus in greater 
 strength at other points, affecting the speech only indi- 
 rectly. If the force of the contraction is below the vocal 
 cords, the throat may not be seriously affected, but the 
 entire system is lia'ble to feel the strain. If the speaker is 
 a clergyman, he may be obliged to resign his charge. A 
 rest will bring relief, but a return to public speaking, un- 
 less the manner of using the voice is changed, will cause a 
 return of the symptoms. 
 
 .A cripple at a hospital spoke with the quality of voice 
 that comes from the use of those muscles. He had evi- 
 dently used them from the beginning with every attempt 
 to speak. Some public speakers are saved from a similar 
 condition because that voice is used only in addressing 
 an audience. The focusing of the contraction in the 
 muscles above the vocal cords is the cause of what is 
 known as clergyman's and teacher's sore throat. When 
 called upon to use more power than is required in the or- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 27 
 
 dinary conversational tone, the throat-contraction is in- 
 creased, and the consequence is throat-disease. Upon 
 the same principle children, when at play, scream into 
 their throats with most destructive energy, which 
 accounts for the excision of so many tonsils. The use of 
 the voice through the breathing-muscles is invigorating 
 and strengthening, but through the throat-muscles it is 
 weakening and dispiriting. The teacher raises his voice 
 in order to be heard by a roomful of pupils, and the 
 greater the interest in his work, the greater the strain. 
 Some clergymen perform the entire service in an easy, 
 conversational style, clear and restful to the hearer, which 
 leaves the speaker physically stronger than before. Oth- 
 ers make the prayer, read the Scriptures and the hymn 
 and give the text well, but when they begin to warm to 
 their subject, the lift begins toward the throat, increasing 
 in intensity to the end. 
 
 One who is accustomed to the study of the voice from 
 this point of view can easily detect, from its quality, 
 when the hold on the breathing-muscles begins to weaken, 
 and can note the exact location of its upward tendency, 
 till it fastens itself upon some point about the throat. 
 An education of this kind is probably of more value than 
 the use of a laryngoscope. If the contraction focuses in 
 the muscles at the sides of the neck, the head may in the 
 
2 g SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 act of speaking bend from side to side. In a few such 
 cases, when also the contraction is great in the lower jaw, 
 it has 'been attended with loss of hearing, which the pupil 
 has reported to me as relieved when the contraction is 
 removed. If the contraction focuses in the muscles at 
 the back of the neck, it is marked in slight cases by a 
 pain in those muscles, when tired or excited. In more se- 
 vere cases the head may shake, as in palsy. In all these 
 cases, although the contraction may remain through life 
 about the same, the tendency, as a rule, is to communi- 
 cate from one nerve-centre to another, to the shoulders, 
 hands and feet, till the entire system is under its influence. 
 The distance is wide between a slight effort made upon 
 the throat-muscles and the cripple at the hospital, but the 
 line of retrogression is complete. 
 
 Many persons, in performing any work with the hands, 
 will repeat their motion with the lips and the facial mus- 
 cles. We all have met persons walking on the street or 
 on the deck of a steamer, with every muscle of the face in 
 a state of contraction. How many can think intently 
 while lying down, and leave the head to drop a dead 
 weight upon the pillow ? The twisting of the fingers by 
 children^and by grown persons as well, when they think 
 they are sitting quite still, and the fidgeting with the 
 leaves of a book while reading, are evidences of an activ- 
 ity at the periphery that should be at the centre. 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 2 9 
 
 Many persons, in walking, hold the hands, wrists and 
 elbows in a state of tension, instead of allowing the arms 
 to swing from the shoulder. It is an indication that the 
 arms are controlled by an over-tension of the muscles 
 about the throat and the neck. All cases of writer's 
 cramp that I have known arose from this cause. Many 
 persons are conscious of a tightening of the throat-mus- 
 cles, which become a pain, when playing a game, reading 
 an exciting book, or doing anything that awakens in- 
 terest. Sometimes, as in shooting at a mark, or in doing 
 anything that requires close attention, the whole system 
 is tense and rigid. A little girl who had St. Vitus's dance 
 as a consequence of the contraction held broken sticks 
 in her hands, shaking them continually. The act seemed 
 to be an outlet for the abnormal energy. As she grew 
 strong at the centre, that exercise was gradually dropped. 
 Some children twist the hair or the ears, and others keep 
 always a string, piece of paper, or something, to work 
 upon with the fingers. 
 
 This misplaced energy in jaw and in throat is the con- 
 striction that all trainers of the voice are obliged to meet. 
 The hold or grasp of the breath is what distinguishes 
 the vocalized from the non-vocalized breath. It is so es- 
 sential that it may almost be called the speech. We begin 
 to speak wherever it is located. It is a great energy, 
 
3 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 how great, probably no one knows with exactness, but it 
 has been estimated to be equal to a thousand pounds. We 
 are wholly unconscious of the force if it is in the right 
 place. If we begin to speak at any point above the dia- 
 phragm, the speech suffers according to the location, the 
 amount of misplaced energy and the temperament of the 
 speaker. If all the energy is centred at any such point, 
 there can be no speech, because it is only force in the 
 breathing-muscles that can drive the breath against the 
 vocal cords; and as the breath, whether vocalized or 
 not, must pass through the glottis, it is plain that if the 
 muscles at the glottis tie up the passage, the speech is 
 hindered in the degree of the force of the contraction. 
 
 This iis the distinguishing symptom in speech-hesitation. 
 It is one cause of spasm of the glottis. K the con- 
 traction -stops at the glottis, only the vowels are hindered ; 
 but if it extends, as it usually does, to the lips and the 
 tongue, the consonants also are affected. Consonants 
 have been called breath-obstructions; but they are as 
 dependent as are the vowels upon the free passage of the 
 breath, and they never obstruct, except when contraction 
 of lips and tongue enter into their formation. 
 
 Four persons were suffering with contraction in dif- 
 ferent forms. Two were school-teachers, one of whom 
 was an invalid. Her voice was weak and her throat dis- 
 
SPEECH-HESITATION. 31 
 
 eased, and she was trying change of climate and rest in 
 hope of finding relief. The other was obliged to give up 
 teaching on account of hoarseness. Besides the other 
 remedies, she practiced gymnastic exercises, and con- 
 sequently lost 'her voice altogether, 'because gymnastics 
 increased the peripheral strength. When the physical 
 exercises were given up, the hoarse voice returned. She 
 said that with any slight excitement, as interesting read- 
 ing or the playing of games, the muscles of the throat 
 closed tightly. 
 
 The third case had been an invalid from childhood, 
 with the contraction focused in the muscles in the side 
 of the neck and the hands. There was no hesitation in 
 speaking any word, but the head bent from side to side, 
 and the contraction had reached the hands. At birth it 
 was with difficulty that she was made to breathe. 
 
 The fourth was a case of speech-hesitancy, the con- 
 traction being in the vocal cords. It was the least com- 
 plicated of all, because the contraction had not reached 
 far beyond the focusing point. In each case the voice 
 was weak and pitched on a high key. 
 
 It is only a voice that is free from that contraction 
 and the percentage of such voices is small that can be 
 readily adapted to the varied requirements of life, from 
 the low, quiet tone necessary in the sick-room, to the 
 
32 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 strong, clear tone that will fill every part of a large 
 audience room. The voice can not expand from the throat. 
 A large class of persons, who never fail to go on, are so 
 nicely balanced as to be very nervous about speaking in 
 unusual places, but never having been quite stopped, they 
 do not know the cause. Some hesitate constantly, but 
 manage to push along, and habit renders them uncon- 
 scious of any serious difficulty; and this unconsciousness 
 may be their salvation. Others hesitate occasionally, but, 
 as this hesitation is seldom, it does not trouble them. All 
 these carry a weight, more or less heavy, but they do 
 not know what the burden is or 'how they came by it. 
 
 Quite a percentage of persons who hesitate habitually 
 get on very well for a time; perhaps will talk for days 
 without revealing any difficulty, especially if difficult per- 
 sons and places are avoided. In some such cases, even 
 the neighbors whom they meet continually detect no weak- 
 ness. It may be that when the conversation becomes ex- 
 citing they are silent or withdraw, and this may give 
 them the reputation of being odd or queer. I am told 
 that some such persons, being always able to talk, when 
 addressed on the -subject of speech-difficulty will league 
 with dealers in tricks as reference, for the revenue that 
 may come to them. But the mass of cases are much more 
 intricate. The tendency of the contraction is to communi- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 33 
 
 cate from point to point, until the whole system is under 
 its influence ; and the severity of the case depends entirely 
 upon how far the contraction reaches and the amount of 
 rigidity it has attained. 
 
 From the vocal cords it reaches out to the jaw, tongue, 
 lips and facial muscles, making of each a new centre as 
 it proceeds. When the muscles of the jaw become rigid, 
 it may cause a profuse flow of saliva, and the teeth will 
 strike together with great force. If in the tongue, it 
 cleaves to the roof of the mouth. If in the lips, they 
 close together immovably. When the contraction extends 
 through the muscles at the neck and the jaw, there may 
 be times when the rigidity is at the extreme, when the 
 person is unable to hear, and if it reaches to the upper 
 part of the face, the eyes may roll about, giving the ap- 
 pearance of convulsions ; or they may move from side to 
 side, never being fixed upon any object. The contraction 
 may stop here, but often it continues to the shoulders, 
 hands and feet. 
 
 These extreme cases feel themselves under the power 
 of a monster clutching and holding them with an irre- 
 sistible power. The extreme examples of these conditions 
 are found in hospitals in a hopelessly chronic or gener- 
 ally paralyzed state. In a healthy muscle, the relaxation 
 equals the contraction. If a muscle continues contracted 
 
34 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 too long, the result will be a partial paralysis. This fre- 
 quently occurs in the lips, tongue, jaw or facial muscles, 
 and as the vocal organs can not be controlled, to one whose 
 attention has not been turned to this aspect of the subject 
 they may suggest brain lesion. 
 
 As far as I have been able to observe, three generations 
 of noticeable throat-contractions bring about an average 
 case of hesitation. Usually it is quite evident in the 
 grandmother, more so in the mother or father, or both, 
 one or both of whom, perhaps, 'hesitates a little sometimes, 
 but not enough to cause inconvenience. The next genera- 
 tion does not get on as well. Occasionally the degrees 
 of difficulty are found in one family. In one case, the 
 mother spoke with a great deal of effort in the throat, 
 the boy seven years old hesitated inveterately ; the child 
 four years old could neither walk nor hold up her head: 
 so great was the misplaced energy. 
 
 The mental phase is conspicuous in those cases in 
 which speech-hesitation is a prominent symptom. It is 
 a serious complication, but stands in relation to the physi- 
 cal as effect and not as cause. One is never afraid to do 
 what he knows that he can do. It is true that by the con- 
 stant play and interplay of the one with the other, the 
 mental may in many cases outgrow the physical, but the 
 origin, the root of the difficulty, lies in the latter. 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 35 
 
 When a sensitive child first learns that his speech is 
 peculiar, he instinctively avoids meeting persons outside 
 the circle of his immediate friends. Often a child five 
 years old resolves not to speak to anyone except his par- 
 ents and nurse, and not unusually at that early age deter- 
 mines not to speak at all and carries out his resolution* 
 He does well, for he avoids the struggle and consequent 
 nervous strain, and is in better condition to receive in- 
 struction. But usually the child tries to talk, and every 
 effort fixes and intensifies the contraction. His playmates 
 laugh at and imitate him, his teacher is tried, his parents 
 pity or blame him, and he dreads them all. Perhaps he 
 has never seen nor head of anyone in like condition, and 
 he feels conspicuous before the world with a mark worse 
 than that of Cain upon him. In his class he stands with 
 beating heart, trembling in every limb, as he sees his turn 
 coming, and when it comes, shakes his head to indicate 
 that he does not know, when he does ; loses his mark and 
 stands at the foot, when he might be at the head. He 
 goes hungry, because he can not ask for food, and eats 
 what he does not want, because he must say the easy word. 
 Very early, life is turned into 'bitterness because the fact 
 that he wants to say a word is the great reason that he 
 can not say it. 
 
 As he grows older, he stays away from merrymakings 
 
36 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 and good times, because he seems to see every eye directed 
 toward him and knows that any attempt to speak will 
 make him conspicuous. He is always looking this way 
 and that, to see if any person is approaching who will 
 speak to him, and turning corners and dodging down 
 alleys to avoid what may be an acquaintance in the dis- 
 tance. He loses trains, because he can not ask for his 
 ticket or tell where his baggage is to go. Nothing is so 
 obedient as a muscle trained ; and on his way to the sta- 
 tion, with mind preoccupied, the first hint that he is to 
 purchase a ticket may be the tightening contraction. He 
 dreams for months over an expected interview that may 
 never come, especially if he is to introduce himself, as 
 his own name stands first on the list of impossibilities. 
 He makes a plan of what the conversation will be, and 
 wonders if he will be able to speak certain words, and 
 when the time comes he has worked himself into such a 
 mental condition that probably he can not speak at all. 
 
 It is well if he must find some occupation, for it will 
 perforce divert his mind from himself. But it is hard for 
 a man to keep books all his life, when his tastes and con- 
 scious ability would open to him the widest field. Said 
 one: "I hesitate badly and am growing worse. I have 
 limited means, have lost my position, and life is a failure, 
 'because of my defect." Said another: "I work for daily 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 37 
 
 wages, when I might 'be in good business. I am an out- 
 cast from society, treated with contempt, and scorned by 
 my inferiors, when I know that I might have a place 
 among the best. Is He a just God, who can send such 
 an affliction upon one who has done nothing to merit it ? 
 Sometimes I can talk with those who can understand me 
 very well for a time, but I can not read aloud, even when 
 alone. If I s'hould try a course of treatment and it should 
 fail, I do not know what the result would be." 
 
 Sometimes one who might shine in society does menial 
 work, because all other avenues are closed to him. Eie 
 associate.-* with low companions because they notice less 
 his infirmity. Neither the social nor the business wo-ul 
 opens its doors very wide to one who seems to go into 
 convulsions *,vi'h every word he attempts to speak. "If i 
 could only talk !" is the wail that goes up from his inmost 
 soul, through every waking moment. It is the las,, 
 thought at night, as he goes to sleep, the first as he awakes 
 in the morning, and he dreams of it all through the night. 
 Sometimes the contraction is evident even when not 
 speaking, and he dreads to appear on the street in the 
 daytime, and yields to the temptation to use a stimulant, 
 depending upon its bracing effect to carry him through 
 an ordeal. In this way, not unusually, a drinking habit 
 is formed, but in the reaction stimulants leave the subject 
 
38 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 worse than before. If he tries to find diversion in enter- 
 tainments, not infrequently he is forced to witness a pain- 
 ful caricature of himself. It is to be hoped that our 
 higher civilization and wider knowledge will oblige us 
 to frown upon such characterization. Nothing but inex- 
 cusable ignorance of the nature of this painful malady can 
 induce any performer so to outrage the sensibilities of 
 so large a portion of any community. It is not to the cred- 
 it of any publication, especially if for the young, to put 
 upon its pages anecdotes or stories representing speech- 
 hesitancy, for there is no one who has the difficulty who 
 would not be pained by them deeply. 
 
 Another type of the mental phase is that of one who 
 uses such extreme care that he seldom hesitates. By con- 
 stant practice he becomes an adept in the use of synonyms. 
 If one word will not do, another may. I knew of one 
 person who never began a sentence with the first word 
 that presented itself, and he never hesitated, except when 
 obliged to be literal. I have talked for hours with others 
 who, to an unpracticed ear, would give no sign of hesitan- 
 cy, because a collection of words was laid away that could 
 never be used under any circumstances. Another list 
 might be used if the conditions were favorable, and so 
 the entire vocabulary was classified. Every word was 
 spoken with an extreme care conspicuous in every move- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 39 
 
 ment, until the whole atmosphere was one of painful re- 
 straint. 
 
 It is true that a few who would gladly drop the burden 
 are so happily constituted that they do not allow it to 
 hinder their success in life, and some can even make it a 
 matter of jest. One who had opportunities of meeting 
 such persons said: "I know some who hesitate and they 
 get on very well." But it was because they got on very 
 well that he knew them. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 My own hope is a sun will pierce 
 
 The thickest cloud earth ever stretched. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 PRIMARY schools have been called, with truth, "breed- 
 * ing-places for speech-hesitation." For this there may 
 be several reasons : Many children are so nicely pivoted 
 that only a little forceful explosion of the vowel from the 
 throat and a little more energy placed upon the articula- 
 tions, are all that is necessary to destroy the slight balance 
 and cause them to hesitate. Perhaps a child hesitates but 
 little, and by encouragement and the right kind of instruc- 
 tion would overcome the slight impediment. It may be 
 that his friends have avoided giving any attention to it, 
 thinking that if nothing was said, he would be less con- 
 scious O'f the infirmity, and be better able to outgrow and 
 overcome it. But he 'has discovered that he can not speak 
 certain letters and words, and has begun to avoid them 
 and substitute others. The teacher does not understand 
 that no word or sound is difficult except as it is made so 
 by the contraction; i. e., that the word is simply subject to 
 the condition. 
 
 If one grasps his pen with all the energy that can be 
 concentrated in the muscles of the hand, he may not be 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 41 
 
 able to write, but the pen is not at fault, the impediment 
 is the misapplied force. 
 
 The child receives the usual phonic drill, di- 
 rect attention being given to the troublesome sounds, and 
 when he struggles through them and repeats them after 
 the teacher, it seems like a victory. But it is a victory 
 that is worse than a defeat. 
 
 Reading is usually more difficult than speaking, be- 
 cause every word must be rendered literally, and learn- 
 ing reading as it is now taught is a dangerous experi- 
 ment for a child inclined to hesitation. School is a very 
 trying place for such a child. He is sensitive, and knows 
 that every ear in the school is on the alert to hear and to 
 magnify every fault. He is met by anything but loving 
 sympathy. The boys and even the girls follow him with 
 taunts, shouting into his ear the words of which he is most 
 afraid, and imitating his efforts. They little know their 
 own danger. The tormenting spirit in boys is stimulated 
 by the helplessness of the object, who knows that to 
 undertake a word in return is to expose himself to still 
 greater ridicule. So, as a rule, he suffers in silence. 
 
 A young man told me of a boy who pursued him more 
 relentlessly than his other companions, and one day his 
 courage was aroused to answer as best he could, that 
 his greatest hope was that he, the tormentor, would live 
 
42 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 to hesitate as badly as himself. This amused the boy so 
 that he put greater determination than usual into his 
 imitations. "To-day," said the young man, "he hesitates 
 worse than I do. I can to-day count twenty who hesitate 
 because, when boys, they imitated me. I am careful about 
 speaking in the presence of children, because of their 
 imitative faculty." 
 
 Teachers can do much to make or mar in this respect. 
 Some, by their kindly helpfulness in encouraging and in 
 screening a child from the rudeness of the other pupils, 
 will sometimes give one Who is not confirmed in the dif- 
 ficulty sufficient confidence to carry him along. Others 
 will make him unnecessarily conspicuous and by their 
 lack of kindly tact fix what might easily have been re- 
 moved. Several have said to me : "I was made to hesitate 
 by the severity of my teacher ;" and others who, to all ap- 
 pearance, had no trouble in speaking were in daily fear 
 of the teacher. Finally a day came when some unusual 
 little severity sent the contraction with a grasp to the 
 throat, and it never lost its hold. I have known children 
 who would hesitate the year through under one teacher, 
 and talk perfectly with another. A quick, short, sharp, 
 incisive manner, however kindly, is very trying to one 
 who hesitates. 
 
 A child who hesitates is a constant menace to all the 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 43 
 
 rest. Besides those who take great pleasure in making 
 him wretched, many who do not directly intend to imitate 
 him do so unconsciously. Children in the primary schools, 
 being at the imitative age, are uncontrollably attracted 
 and fascinated by anything out of the usual course, es- 
 pecially if it is unnatural. A mother of several children 
 told me that when they were in the lower school-grades, 
 there were always some who hesitated. Her diildren 
 took no pains to imitate them, but they continually caught 
 it up. Said she : "I thought that in spite of all I could do 
 I should have a family who could not talk; but I man- 
 aged to carry them through." All are not as fortunate. 
 
 Children are sensitively and delicately organized. With 
 many persons, the chief means of control is fear. The 
 child so conditioned dreads from day to day meeting the 
 teacher and the children with whom he is associated. He 
 knows that every attempt at a recitation is an exposure to 
 ridicule, and out of schodl-'hours he thinks of it contin- 
 ually. Through the year he becomes accustomed to the 
 teacher and one class of scholars, but through vacation 
 his mind is constantly dwelling upon the thought of the 
 new teacher and the new class that he must meet. The 
 question is : "Will the teacher be patient with my infirmity, 
 and will the pupils be more, or less, insulting than those 
 in the old class?" Generally, the hesitation that com- 
 
44 SPEECPI-HESITA TION. 
 
 mences and is developed in the primary school increases 
 through the different grades, until the child can neither 
 read nor recite. 
 
 Few contract the difficulty after reaching ten or twelve 
 years of age, because by that time the muscular action 
 has become fixed. For the same reason, the difficulty of 
 changing the action after that time is increased. At the 
 present time, prevention is one of the strong elements 
 in all remedial work. We guard our schools carefully 
 against every other form of infectious disease, but to this 
 the doors are open wide, in spite of the fact that sorm 
 children, by hearing another hesitate only once, may be- 
 wrecked for life. 
 
 It is an ungracious act to criticize, especially when one 
 stands alone and aims his criticism at a practice or a be- 
 lief that is generally accepted as the highest and best ; bui 
 this must not deter me from saying that our phonic sys 
 tern needs revision, before it can be safe for any child. 
 By the forceful practice of consonants we are helping or* 
 that great power of misapplied strength which is the ban* 
 of pupils and the discouragement of a ! ll teachers of th 
 voice. Speech is the clothing of the thought. Is the 
 thinker helped, either in speaking or in singing, by being 
 reminded that a word ends with a d, t or s? Besides the 
 great energy employed in making them so prominent, so 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 45 
 
 much strength is drawn from the grasp at the centre. 
 "Does she not articulate well?" asked one, of a singer. 
 "Yes, almost too well," was the answer. And it was 
 true, that the singer was soon unable to sing at all. The 
 German language abounds in consonants, which may be 
 the reason why it is so unsafe to practice German songs. 
 Works upon the voice usually close with a chapter giving 
 exercises for those who hesitate, which should never even 
 be seen by them. 
 
 Pupils who come to me, almost without exception, re- 
 port that nothing so increased the hesitation as the phonic 
 drill received by them in school ; and my greatest anxiety 
 for them is that, on returning to school, they may be ex- 
 posed to it again. One with the tendency to hesitation 
 can not with safety hear it. If such a statement as this 
 had been made to me twenty-five years ago, I should have 
 resented it;but now my eyes can not be closed to the truth, 
 which is that phonics, as they are taught, induce hesita- 
 tion faster than we can by any means correct it, and where 
 it is the most conscientiously taught, the percentage of 
 hesitation is the highest. 
 
 Without doubt, the remote cause of hesitation is mis- 
 applied energy. When a child labors under all the con- 
 traction that can be possible and be able to speak, a slight 
 influence may bring that contraction to a focus. A child 
 
46 SPEECH-HESITA TION . 
 
 four years old visited for a few hours one of about her 
 age who hesitated in her speech. On her return home 
 she imitated the child. Her friends were at first amused, 
 but after a few repetitions, it became a fixed habit and 
 lasted through life. It is a common occurrence that the 
 affection is communicated by a nurse who is herself un- 
 der its influence. It may be explained here that it is not 
 necessary for one actually to hesitate, in order to com- 
 municate the difficulty. A marked throat-contraction, if 
 imitated, may be all that is needed to carry it to a child 
 sensitive to this influence. 
 
 Twins eight years old were in school together, and a 
 little afraid of the teacher. One day a question was put 
 to one of them with more than usual directness, and he 
 could not answer. He was supposed to be obstinate. 
 When he went home his parents thougfht the same, but 
 when he tried to talk it was with the greatest difficulty that 
 he could speak a word. In two or three days his brother 
 went through the same experience, and neither of them 
 was ever able to speak with any freedom. The contrac- 
 tion, once focused, will remain. 
 
 A boy eight years old met a man on the street, who in- 
 quired the way to some place. It was done in so impera- 
 tive a manner that the boy was frightened and could not 
 answer. This enraged the man, who thought that the boy 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 47 
 
 was making fun of him. The boy went home in a state 
 of intense excitement, and for some hours could not utter 
 a syllable. From that time he spoke with marked hesita- 
 tion. In my experience, whooping-cough, diphtheria, 
 scarlet fever any disease that affects the throat may be 
 sufficient to fix the contraction. The cough that follows a 
 common cold, laughing with effort in the throat, as so 
 many do, or a blow on the head, is liable to produce a 
 like result. A boy exclaimed : "Ha, ha, ha !" several times, 
 for fun, and it ended in hesitation. 
 
 A serious misconception is the classing of these cases 
 with those of deaf-mutes, and subjecting them to the same 
 kind of training. Deaf-mutism is one thing; speech-hesi- 
 tation is quite another. A deaf-mute must learn every 
 particular sound; but is it necessary for one who has 
 formed every sound in every combination until he is six, 
 eight or ten years of age, and perhaps has spoken with 
 unusual clearness, to learn the structure of speech, if a 
 fright, blow, or severe illness any abrupt shock comes 
 and he suddenly hesitates ? This minute he talks ; the next 
 he can not. Is it because he suddenly forgets how? I 
 think not. The truth is that he, like most of the world, 
 has practiced a great deal of throat-contraction, and one 
 of these influences was the last, decisive stroke that caused 
 a little more determined focusing of the unnatural 
 strength, and the slight balance was lost. 
 
48 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 "Why does anyone talk like that ?" said a person to me, 
 referring to speech-hesitation. I said : "Why do you use 
 your throat in that way?" "I do not know," was the an- 
 swer. Then I explained : "He makes that contraction a 
 little more than you do; that is all. The result is what 
 you see." It may be added that the questioner had pain 
 in the throat with every slight cold. 
 
 The early part of my work was a line of experiments 
 with different methods, with no settled opinion in re- 
 gard to the cause. If cases differed in severity, the reason 
 for the difference was not clear; and what one was able 
 to do, it seemed reasonable to expert of another. A run 
 of mild cases for a time seemed to favor t)he impression. 
 One to whom the process and the reasons were explained 
 caught the principle, at once put it inlto execution, and 
 was soon out of the difficulty. Another young man I 
 saw twice, about fifteen minutes. He bravely hdd to the 
 right, although it was new and strange to him, and the 
 wrong by degrees disappeared. He spoke in a falsetto 
 voice, which was caused by the contraction. 
 
 Just as I had taken my seat on a train one evening, for 
 a ride of half an hour, a young man took the seat by me, 
 and began at once telling me that he had been for some 
 years preparing himself for a public speaker, which for 
 evident reasons he could never be, unless his obstacle 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 49 
 
 could be removed. At once the whole matter was ex- 
 plained to him and 'he took a lesson on the train. Two 
 years afterward I heard from him. He had been able to 
 use the instruction with entire success. 
 
 Another young man, who was in danger of losing his 
 place and who, when it was most important that he should 
 speak, could not utter a sound, took ten lessons, and was 
 able to take up the work and carry it out for himself, 
 until he could speak perfectly. His case, although severe, 
 was uncomplicated, i. e., the contraction centred at the 
 vocal cords, and had not communicated, to any appreci- 
 able extent, to other centres. 
 
 A young man Who could never buy an article at a store, 
 a ticket at the railway ticket-office, or make a call, without 
 the greatest difficulty, was able to do all these with per- 
 fect freedom, after three weeks' instruction ; and he com- 
 pleted the work by himself. These all were cases of sim- 
 ple throat-contraction. The seriousness of the case de- 
 pends upon the rigidity and extent of the contraction, and 
 the degree of mental complication. 
 
 A young woman, after the first day's training, would 
 stop instantly when she saw that she was going wrong, 
 and she never hesitated after the third or the fourth day 
 It must not be understood that all tendency to hesitate 
 was gone in the time mentioned, in any of these cases. 
 
50 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 but the persons persistently aimed at the right and re- 
 fused to practice the wrong. The cases were not com- 
 plicated and the gain was steady and sure. 
 
 Two young women Who were anxious for an education 
 and who could not attend school because of their inability 
 to talk, began school when partly relieved, grew stronger 
 as they went on, and became teachers. 
 
 A young man in whom the contraction extended from 
 the throat to the jaw, lips, tongue, eyes, and finally to the 
 hands and the feet, and who could speak but very little, 
 came to me during the winter months. He did farm 
 work, being unable to obtain other employment on ac- 
 count of his disability. After the second winter he found 
 a good situation and has had no further trouble. 
 
 One case was of a young man suffering from chorea. 
 His hands were closed with thumbs turned in upon the 
 palm, and he had no thought that they cou'ld be opened. 
 It was necessary for someone to cut his food. There 
 was a great deal of contraction in the face; the head 
 shook and shoulders lifted. After exercising the breath- 
 ing-muscles in the usual way, the young man was sur- 
 prised to find his hands open upon the arms of his chair, 
 and a general relaxation of all the muscles followed. 
 The speech gradually became free, and the whole system 
 was restored to a natural condition. This case confirmed 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 5 r 
 
 the opinion that nervousness was an effect and not a 
 cause. 
 
 A young man of nineteen came to me, directly from 
 Scotland. When eight years old, a door was blown 
 against his head, and from that time he was unable to 
 speak. It was the opinion of the best physicians in Glas- 
 gow that he could never be made to speak. He commu- 
 nicated by writing, and the mental complication was 
 strongly developed. Sometimes, hopeless as it was, he 
 would attempt to speak a word, and the evident strain 
 showed that every muscle in the system took part in the 
 effort. In this, as in some preceding cases, the question 
 was how to find a beginning; but the same process that 
 had unlocked the bars in other cases opened the way in 
 this, and soon the young man could utter words, and it 
 was not long before he could read to me, and converse 
 very well He was so sensitive that he would falter if 
 anyone passed through the room, but, being encouraged, 
 after a time he read with the class, and at the end of ten 
 months, when he left me, he could transact business any- 
 where, and was speaking at public meetings. 
 
 In several cases where speech was impossible, words 
 and their meanings were fully recognized and understood 
 when seen in print, but there was no mental connection 
 between the printed and the spoken word, and it was 
 
52 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 necessary to learn it as something new and foreign. A 
 boy six years old, knowing that he could not speak (the 
 reason was a contraction at the glottis) refused to try. 
 When the right way was explained to him, he put it into 
 practice at once, and in three days was talking with per- 
 fect freedom. This went on we'll for a while, but he was 
 not kept under training until strong, and the result was a 
 relapse. 
 
 In the first place, the boy did well to keep silence. 
 In that way communication of the difficulty to other parts 
 of the system was avoided; but, after once talking well, 
 he dropped back by degrees, and then fie diose the strug- 
 gle with the contraction rather than the silence. The con- 
 traction was very great, and became communicated to the 
 muscles of the neck, right arm, and right leg. When he 
 returned to me in about two years, he bent his head from 
 side to .side and lifted his right leg and right arm in 
 his attempts to speak. His parents expected that the 
 first experience would be repeated, and it was difficult 
 for them at once to see that we were now dealing with a 
 \ery different case; but the work was finally accom- 
 plished. 
 
 When the contraction extends to hands and feet, the 
 case is considerably complicated. Two young men whose 
 symptoms compared almost exactly were receiving in- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 53 
 
 struction at the same time. The feet were lifted, the 
 hands contracted, and the winking of the eyelids was ab- 
 normally frequent, showing that the contraction extended 
 from the top of the head to the sole of the foot. One be- 
 lieved in what he was doing, and held and used every gain 
 that was made, and so worked on perseveringly until en- 
 tire freedom was gained. The other had no faith, could 
 see no good in anything that did not bring perfection in a 
 little time. When a gain was evident, he believed it would 
 not last, and proceeded to prove his position by refusing 
 to continue the practice. Of course, all work with him 
 was a failure. 
 
 Wherever the contraction centres, the sense of weak- 
 ness that follows will, like any other physical ailment, 
 affect the mind in a degree ; but it is only when the prom- 
 inent symptom is speech-hesitation that the mind suffers 
 seriously. But the mental complication is an effect and 
 not a cause, and in all cases that have come under my ob- 
 servation, the organs of speech are without fault; and 
 besides, when the physical disability is removed, tihe men- 
 tal affection gradually disappears. There may be some 
 question, however, whether the great strain caused by the 
 contraction may not in some cases affect the brain. 
 
 One who took a three weeks' course with me said that 
 he could both hear and see better, as the contraction came 
 
54 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 tinder control. A marked feature of his case was that he 
 felt a pressure in the right side of his head Which, when 
 he tried to talk, was almost a pain. The contraction in 
 his case was centred in the throat, neck and face. His 
 mind was clearer and he could think better when the 
 strain was removed from the head. 
 
 A young lady made a similar report of herself. She 
 had a very loud voice, which had been intensified by 
 shouting, and Which seemed directed to the lower jaw. 
 She and her friends had for some time been conscious 
 that her mind was being affected in some way. She wrote 
 after her return home, referring to the effect of the treat- 
 ment on 'her mental condition : "It is the difference be- 
 tween a cloudy day and a bright June morning." 
 
 A little girl six years of age came to me for training. 
 Nothing had been noticeable in her speech until, when 
 she was about four years old, being outdoors at play, a 
 watering-cart went by, and suddenly sprinkled water upon 
 her. She was frightened and seriously shocked, and from 
 that time she began to hesitate in speaking. The fright 
 created no new conditions, but developed or focused those 
 that already existed, i. e., tightened and fixed a con- 
 traction that might otherwise have beetn overcome. Both 
 legs were weak ; she lifted her right foot and right hand 
 and bent her head, her face becoming very red in her 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 55 
 
 efforts to speak. She was also subject to periodical at- 
 tacks of nausea. The contraction in the tongue and the 
 jaw was most m'arked, but no symptom was unusual. 
 She was with me some months, and during that time the 
 effort in the leg and the hand disappeared, and was nearly 
 gone from the tongue. The nausea also disappeared. Con- 
 siderable throat-contraction remained, but was gradually 
 becoming less. A't this stage a removal to a distant city 
 interrupted the course of treatment. At that time slhe 
 seemed to be on the road to perfect recovery, and, in- 
 deed, to the general observer she appeared well. If all in- 
 fluences had been favorable and if hers had been an or- 
 dinary case, she would have continued growing stronger ; 
 but when she caught a little in the throat, a boy imitated 
 and laughed at her, and, being sensitive, it was more than 
 she could bear. From that time she grew worse. The 
 contraction in the tongue assumed a more violent form, 
 and the disability in the right arm and leg returned, and 
 so increased that both became useless. Finally, it became 
 evident to those who understood the symptoms, that the 
 brain was in some way affected. She was a very interest- 
 ing and intelligent child. If there was bilain disease in 
 the beginning, could the unfavorable symptoms have been 
 removed by vocal training? The specialist who exam- 
 ined the child saw symptoms indicating a tumor of the 
 
56 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 brain, but he stated also that some symptoms necessary 
 to prove it were wanting. The child died at the Massa- 
 chusetts General Hospital. A post-mortem examination 
 showed a diseased brain, but, as reported to me, there was 
 no tumor. One of the best authorities, who examined the 
 child before she went to the hospital, thought there might 
 be a small chance for her recovery. Since noticing with 
 greater care the effect of gymnastic exercises, I think that 
 we may have lost the slight chance by encouraging her 
 to use her limbs while they were in an abnormal condi- 
 tion. 
 
 The contraction may exist as an all-prevailing influence 
 throughout the system, and never centre at any given 
 point, unless developed by fright, fever, whooping-cough, 
 or any other positive influence that brings it to a focus. 
 
 Children under the influence of abnormal muscular con- 
 traction dread to be alone, and are likely to be afraid of 
 the dark. They are commonly styled "nervous children. ' 
 To spring at a child to frighten away hiccough is an un- 
 safe thing to do, and cases of convulsions have been re- 
 ported to me as caused by tossing a child in the air just for 
 exercise or for fun. When the contraction exists in this 
 general way, as nature is helpful, strength may be un- 
 consciously established at the true centre, or a slight over- 
 balance at any point may be overcome, and then the child 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 57 
 
 outgrows it; or the contraction may at any time develop 
 any conditions of which it is capable. 
 
 As a case of serious misplaced contraction develops, it 
 may change character arid show new and more aggra- 
 vated symptoms. A child eight years of age had scarlet 
 fever, which induced speech-hesitation. After a time the 
 hesitation stopped and epilepsy followed. A young man 
 whose physical system suffered severely from the con- 
 traction -and in whom speech-hesitation was a marked 
 symptom, met with a great disappointment, which de- 
 veloped epilepsy. In some serious cases of speech-hesita- 
 tion it has been noticed that one of the parents was an 
 epileptic. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Truth is the strong thing. Robert Browning. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the mild cases opened the way to a gen- 
 eral knowledge of the nature and consequent manner 
 of treatment of this peculiar malady, it is from the sever- 
 est cases that positive information has been obtained. If 
 .a child does not cry at birth, he may be a cripple without 
 a voice. If the cry is produced with difficulty, he lives 
 under the disadvantage of a partly disorganized condition, 
 varying in different individuals. In Rhode Island any 
 person having charge of an infant is expected, if the eyes 
 are not in a perfect condition, to report the fact to the 
 health officer immediately. This is an act to prevent 
 blindness. We are looking for some way in which to pre- 
 vent speech-disturbances. As the conditions that develop 
 all the various symptoms, including speech-hesitation, be- 
 gin at birth, would it not be well for all Who have the 
 care of children to know and to be able to report the 
 voice-conditions of every child ? We shall sometime reach 
 that point. If to-d ! ay our kindergarten and primary 
 teachers were models in all that relates to the voice, and 
 were required to train their pupils properly, much might 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 59 
 
 be done in the way of prevention ; but the training should 
 begin by imitation, before the child learns to talk. In this 
 way all mental complications would be avoided, and the 
 speech would not be in the way of the general develop- 
 ment. The most pernicious advice that can be given is, 
 "Let him be; he will outgrow it." It is as two grains of 
 wheat hidden in two bushels of chaff. There is no error 
 so hard to meet and to refute as one that contains an ele- 
 ment of truth. It is true that a few, in whom the con- 
 traction is slight, outgrow it; but, unfortunately, it is 
 equally true that the multitude do not. 
 
 Sometimes a little common-sense training, like "Wait 
 till the excitement is over," or reading aloud, declamation, 
 talking out courageously, or speaking the words with 
 decision, may relieve the self-consciousness and restore 
 the needed balance. Many a mother has saved her child 
 from a chronic condition, by obliging him to stop till he 
 could speak without hesitation. Counting any number be- 
 fore speaking has the same effect. Any emotion crowds 
 toward the throat; that removed, the contraction drops 
 to its proper place. 
 
 Avicenna, an Arabian physician, born in 980, recom- 
 mended taking a full breath before speaking. Perhaps no 
 device has received more attention or done greater in- 
 jury. It is opposed to nature's economy, which is to do the 
 
60 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 most work with the least material. It is a common but 
 false notion that a person who hesitates speaks upon 
 exhausted lungs. Some, because of the contraction, do 
 exhaust the lungs when beginning to speak; so do many 
 w l ho do not hesitate. Every inspiration is sufficient for 
 ordinary speaking; more than that embarrasses and hin- 
 ders. Just stopping ( to take a 'full breath may help one 
 over a hard place for a time, but the effect is weakening 
 and leaves him less able than before to meet an emer- 
 gency. Besides, it becomes, as any trick or device may be, 
 a subterfuge, which is an unsafe reliance. 
 
 Several cases have been reported to me which were 
 very successfully treated by Whipping. When the child 
 began to hesitate, the father, and sometimes the mother, 
 administered the chastisement. It is a most unsafe ex- 
 periment. Many children, if subjected to it, would be 
 liable to be thrown into convulsions or 'seriously injured 
 mentally. 
 
 In a few cases, a slight movement called "a trick" mav 
 give relief. But tricks should be used with caution, and 
 never in serious cases, because one may in this way add 
 tension to an already overstrained part. In this haphaz- 
 ard treatment, which gives no definite aim, what helps one 
 is not likely to relieve another. 
 
 The person who cures 'himself is everywhere. Meeting 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 6 1 
 
 such cases 'frequently, a special study was made of their 
 peculiarities, in the hope of gaining from this source a 
 more direct and satisfactory light. Most of them told me 
 frankly that they had no idea 'how it was done. "I made 
 up my mind that I would not hesitate; that is all that I 
 can say about it." Others said: "My mother stopped 
 me every time I began to go wrong." One lady applied 
 for a position, which was refused because of her speech- 
 disability. She promised that she would 'Stop the hesita- 
 tion at once if the position was given to her. As her char- 
 acter eminently qualified her, the place was given, and she 
 carried out her determination to the letter, but could give 
 me no hint of 'how it was done. 
 
 Others have said that when old enough to be sensitive in 
 regard to their affliction and to see the disadvantages con- 
 nected with it, they have managed, in some way unknown 
 to themselves, to gain control of it. Others, by assuming 
 a coincidence they did not feel, have risen above it. One 
 gentleman said that when a boy, his associates urged him 
 to join a debating society. He declined, explaining that 
 he could not, for obvious reasons, take part in debate. 
 But the boys wanted him, and induced him to join. They 
 knew that in every other way he was fully their equal, 
 so they urged until he was induced to make a trial. The 
 boys were helpful; he got on better than he expected; 
 
62 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 the experiment was repeated, and in this way he over- 
 came the whole trouble. He does not know how much he 
 owes those boys. If they had laughed at him, the reverse 
 would >no doubt have been the result. 
 
 A person said to me : "I do not see why one needs 
 assistance to overcome speech-affection." 
 
 "Do you understand the difficulty?" I asked. 
 
 "I think I do; I had as much trouble as anyone could." 
 
 "How did you overcome it?" I inquired. 
 
 "Just as I do everything else; when I make up my mind 
 to a thing, it is done." 
 
 Very little of the information gained in this way was 
 suggestive or helpful. 
 
 In my experience this trouble is usually intensified in 
 the second generation. Many a father who has "cured" 
 himself expects his son to do the same. The father has no 
 knowledge of the way in which he found relief; he can 
 make no comparison between his own case and that of his 
 son, wihom he charges with want of will. He does not 
 know that while one may be so conditioned that an ex- 
 ercise of will is all that is necessary to carry him through, 
 another, by the exercise of the same amount will, may 
 only increase and tighten the contraction. A father need 
 never expect his son to follow his example in this respect. 
 
 In other diseases we expect difference of degree, and 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 63 
 
 this is no exception. That a person must experience the 
 difficulty before he is fitted to give instruction is one of 
 the superstitions growing out of the general ignorance 
 upon the subject. Upon this principle, a physician should 
 contract all the diseases he is called upon to treat. The 
 differences caused by heredity, temperament, and the al- 
 most endless variations in the extent of the contraction, 
 can only be understood by comparing many cases one 
 with another, from the general standpoint of cause and 
 effect. There is a limit beyond which no case can be 
 outgrown, where shouting, or the exercise of will, but 
 tightens the fetters already too closely drawn; where all 
 the simple means that have indirectly given relief to many 
 art not only useless but harmful. Persons so conditioned 
 never find the way blindly; the difficulty is radical, and 
 must receive radical treatment. 
 
 Two distinct principles enter into the formation of per- 
 fect speech, absolute hold of the breath, centring where 
 it turns to go out ; and absolute let go above that point. 
 If any deviation from these conditions exists, the remedy 
 lies in a return to the normal. If a person overcomes any 
 phase of the muscular disorganization, of which speech- 
 hesitation is a prominent symptom, it is because, either 
 blindly or otherwise, he finds these principles, and puts 
 them into practice. 
 
64 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 Every teacher has been limited by the traditionary opin- 
 ion that all that is necessary to be done is to learn to talk ; 
 therefore, a "perfect and permanent cure" should be ef- 
 fected in a short time. He is also expected to cure every 
 case without any exception, and every dase is to be placed 
 beyond the possibility of a relapse. This is to be per- 
 formed by some magic or sleight of hand on the part of 
 the teacher, which leaves the pupil free from all respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 I asked the clergyman who took lessons of Mme. Seiler 
 how long it was before all tendency to contract the mus- 
 cles of the throat was gone. He said : "From three to 
 four years." He took lessons four weeks, and went di- 
 rectly into his pulpit. When 'he felt the contraction ris- 
 ing, 'he stopped and waited until it ha'd 'dropped to its 
 proper place. He did the same in conversation. He said . 
 "It is death to me to allow the wrong, and life to do the 
 right ; therefore, I never speak under the influence of the 
 contraction." 
 
 When we consider that the conditions which lead up to 
 speech-hesitation begin at birth, and that the muscles 
 which are to be brought into exercise have been for years 
 in a chronic state of disuse, we can understand that in 
 many cases they must be brought into a state of activity 
 by the exercise of the greatest care, because overwork re- 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 65 
 
 acts upon the throat-muscles and increases the contrac- 
 tion. 
 
 It should be known, also, that it is the few who suffer 
 no recurrence or relapse. A small percentage will guin 
 steadily to the end, but the ordinary and especially the 
 severe case will be liable to relapse; there will be ups 
 and downs until the muscular energy has gained a nor- 
 mal strength. Whenever one is tired, or suffering from 
 any physical ailment, the old contraction is liable to as- 
 sert itself. At such times it would be well to remain 
 quiet, because one gains only when doing right. When 
 a person has lived under the great strain for years, he 
 loses the power of comparison in this matter, and if the 
 load is partly lifted, he may believe himself to be per- 
 fecc, when the work is only begun. 
 
 Occasionally one will be able to 'hold a part gain, but, 
 as a rule, there is no safety except perfection, and the pu- 
 pil should remain under the eye of a teacher until he 
 knows the difference between right and wrong, and can 
 do the one and avoid the other. The most discouraging 
 feature of the work is that one must go back to what 
 should have been accomplished When learning to talk, be- 
 cause human nature revolts against a backward move- 
 ment; but whoever will pursue it patiently, persistently, 
 and perseveringly will conquer in the end. 
 
66 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 It is like aiming at a mark. At first there will be fre- 
 quent failures, but if the aim is continued the time will 
 come when the mark will be struck always; 'i. e., every 
 word will be spoken without misplaced contraction. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 There is much music, excellent voice, in this little 
 organ ; yet can not you make it speak ? Hamlet. 
 
 NE form of serious speech-disturbance is undevel- 
 oped articulation. We meet persons frequently, who 
 omit a sound or substitute another. Common illustra- 
 tions are the omission of 'the letter r, or the substitution of 
 w or /, d for hard g or k, or the combination th for s, 
 commonly called "a lisp." Speech begins with short u or 
 ugh, and they are often ma'de to fill the place of any other 
 vowel. The diphthong ou is often substituted for long i, 
 and there is a general inability to make the vowel-sound 
 tine to its character. Any failure in this respect suggests 
 a reversion to a primitive type. The Chinese as a nation 
 omit r ; the Ephraimites used s in the place of sh. Trav- . 
 elers have stated that the Society Islanders can not pro- 
 nounce the hard g and k ; i. e., they never lift the back of 
 the tongue. In learning to articulate, a child does what is 
 easiest. The lips when at rest are in position to form 
 labials. For that reason a child may say "mama" and 
 "papa," and go no farther. The dentals are nearly as 
 easy, as the tongue when at rest is in the proper place for 
 their expression. In forming other consonants, the 
 
68 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 tongue or the lips must make a special movement if the 
 sound is produced; and if one is not imitative in this re- 
 spect, and is not able to connect the sound with the exact 
 movement that produces the sound, his speech may be a 
 jargon. An omission or a substitution in the case of one 
 sound is noticeable, but in some cases so many letters 
 are omitted or substituted as to render the speech unin- 
 telligible. When the entire articulative process is so 
 changed, something like a new language is formed. Some- 
 times several in a family are so affected, understanding 
 each other but having little verbal communication with 
 the outside world. This is not owing to originality. Usu- 
 ally the disability is keenly felt, and the child is glad to 
 learn. The parents and the nurse learned to talk uncon- 
 sciously, and have no knowledge of how to correct the er- 
 ror. The contraction that causes speech-hesitation is 
 found in every varying degree, in complication with this 
 form of speech-affection. The weakness at the centre 
 causes an abnormal peripheral activity. The child per- 
 haps is sent out to run off that misapplied force, when 
 what he needs is energy at the centre. Sometimes the ab- 
 normal energy is so great as to suggest insanity. As the 
 power otf imitation differs in degree, some children, as 
 they grow older, will see the wrong and be able to cor- 
 rect it. This usually occurs within the first six years of a 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 69 
 
 child's life. It is unsafe to trust to this, because every ar- 
 ticulation is a muscular action which has a tendency to 
 'become automatic by repetition. Some of the best au- 
 thorities believe thai the failure in a child to talk perfect- 
 ly at six years of age, by simply hearing words spoken 
 by others, is conclusive evidence of mental weakness. 
 There are feeble-minded persons who hesitate in speak- 
 ing, because muscular contraction in them is indiscrim- 
 inative. No doubt there are feeble-minded children who 
 fail to articulate, but the large proportion of bright 
 children who can not articulate, but who learn rapidly 
 under proper instruction, proves that this disability does 
 not always mean mental weakness. 
 
 Demosthenes did not (hesitate. He could not form the 
 letter r, and his articulation was not clear. Shouting to 
 the waves was a dangerous experiment, but it succeed- 
 ed with him, and his voice gained strength. The pebbles 
 obliged him to individualize the words, instead of run- 
 ning them together. It is said that Henry Ward Beecher 
 spent the most of three years of his life in overcoming an 
 indistinctness in his speech that unfitted him for pulpit 
 oratory. 
 
 The advice, "Let him be; he will outgrow it," or 
 "He will speak words when he sees the need," is most 
 pernicious for any form of speech-affection. It may be 
 
70 SPEECH-HESITATION. 
 
 doing a child an irreparable wrong, nay, it is almost 
 criminal, to leave out of the first years of his life this 
 greatest means of development. If, as some believe, 
 words are necessary to thought, these children have been 
 obliged to work with very imperfect material. Some of 
 them, having great force of character, keep pace very well 
 with other children; but, in general, to judge them by 
 those who can speak correctly, i's making a most unfair 
 comparison. One who 'has traveled in a foreign country 
 where no one understood his language, will have some 
 conception of the strain upon suc'h a life. Besides, one 
 suffers physically from the loss of the healthful exercise 
 that comes from the constant use of correct speedi. If a 
 child has no speech-instinct or 'desire for communication, 
 he will not learn to talk unless a responsive spirit can be 
 aroused. 
 
 A boy nine years old could speak no word so that it 
 could be understood. The tongue through overexercise 
 became so large as to interfere with the swallowing. As 
 it lay out of the mouth, there could be no articulation. The 
 strength in the tongue was greater than in the throat- 
 muscles, therefore there was no hesitation sufficient to 
 stop speech. He was a very active boy, but not strong. 
 He fell frequently, because of weakness of his legs; he 
 could not dress himself, because his fingers were too weak 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 71 
 
 to fasten his clothing; and he was unable to put on his 
 coat and overshoes. There were growths in his nasal 
 passage, which were removed. Whenever the force is 
 wrongly centred, there are liable to be abnormal growths, 
 or some either form of disease. 
 
 These extreme symptoms were new, and the case was 
 watched with the greatest interest. Soon it was evident 
 that as the effort was removed from the tongue and the 
 jaw, the difficulty in swallowing was corrected, and 
 Strength came to every part of the system. He was very 
 social, and his inability to make himself understood was 
 a very great strain upon the nervous system. Sometimes 
 he would stamp and scream with all his might, but as the 
 unnatural energy was removed from the tongue, it gradu- 
 ally fell into place. He soon learned to form sounds. In 
 four months' time he could speak any word, and the diffi- 
 culty in swallowing disappeared. But the most noticeable 
 feature in the case was that, as the great force left the 
 tongue, strength came to his legs and fingers. 
 
 The boy did his paft of the work well. He never failed 
 in the utmost exactness in carrying out instructions. An- 
 other boy, sixteen years old, could speak but two words. 
 He was as conscientious and as anxious to learn as the 
 former boy, but the symptoms were more confirmed, re- 
 quiring a longer time for removal. This boy was gener- 
 
72 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 ally weak. He stooped, 'his feet dragged, his arms hung 
 in a lifeless way, and he was subject to nausea. As he 
 learned to use his voice, he grew strong, and all the symp- 
 toms changed for the better. When 'he did his first er- 
 rand at a store, and was understood, the hopelessness in 
 him gave place to courage, and he began to feel that he 
 was a man. At birth it Was with difficulty that he was 
 made to breathe, and he was in spasms most of the time 
 for 'three days. 
 
 A little girl seven years of age spoke but a very 
 few words. She had learned to communicate entirely by 
 pantomime. She could generally make us understand by 
 that means all she would have been glad to say. She was 
 in a condition that suggested insanity, and at first an at- 
 tempt to try to place the tongue and lips was a great trial. 
 Her nervousness was so great that a minute was a long 
 time for 'her to practice. But soon s'he began to be proud 
 that she could speak a new word ; that induced her to aim 
 at words that she could not speak, and then she gained 
 faster. When she learned a new sound she would for 
 some time put it everywhere, but every gain made way for 
 another, and now she says most ordinary words, and ap- 
 plies them properly. She lias read three Second Readers 
 through, and has commenced the Third Reader. She had 
 a can of water out-of-doors, and someone asked her if 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 73 
 
 she knew where there was a cylinder. She at once 
 pointed to the can and said : "That is a cylinder." The 
 f\rst word she learned to spell was "cat," and it was a 
 serious process ; but now she can learn to spell any vv jrd 
 of one syllable by studying it over once or twice. She has 
 been with me a year. 
 
 Sometimes the hesitation and the failure in articulation 
 combine in one case. In a little boy of five the muscles of 
 the throat closed when he attempted to speak. He would 
 open his mouth and grow red in the face, but could not 
 make a sound because of the effort in the throat. He ap- 
 peared to have croup with every slight cold. There was 
 no recurrence pf this symptom after the contraction was 
 removed. So many sounds were omitted or changed 
 about, that when he could speak 'he could not be under- 
 stood. He brought a pear to me, and asked : "II a woup ?'" 
 ("Is it ripe?") That sentence is an illustration of the 
 whole. The child was so sensitive in regard to his speech 
 that he would not try to speak to anyone outside of his 
 own family ; but he overcame it all. 
 
 Dr. Lennox Browne, in "Voice, Song and Speech," 
 basing his information on the report made by Mr. Robert 
 M. Zug in Werner's Magazine for January, 1879, 
 states upon a computation of five in 1,000 in 1870, that 
 the number of those who hesitate in the United States 
 
74 SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 alone, is almost three times that of the blind, insane and 
 deaf-mutes added together. 
 
 In the public schools of Boston, according to fhe latest 
 statistics, there are 500, or seven in 1,000, who speak with 
 difficulty. One who understands the situation said : "We 
 do not know what to do, so we pay no attention to them 
 till they get so bad that they can not talk at all." 
 
 During our great World's Fair in Chicago, the proud 
 toast was made in one of the leading periodicals that 
 every important subject was to be discussed and that the 
 various committees had planned to omit nothing that was 
 worthy of their attention. But this great army of suffer- 
 ers was wholly ignored. Not a voice was heard even so 
 mudh as to report whether or not the darkness had been 
 penetrated by one ray of light. Yet in vital consequence 
 it might well have stood at the head of the list. 
 
 It may be questioned if a work so important should be 
 left wholly to the judgment or the caprice of parents, and 
 if it would not be proper for tthe State to know how many 
 and who are affected with speech-disability, and oblige the 
 parents to attend to it, furnishing a school for those who 
 are unable to bear the expense. A difficulty that disables 
 a young man from joining the army is certainly worthy 
 the attention of the government. 
 
 The terms generally used in defining speech-hesitation 
 
SPEECH-HESITA TION. 
 
 75 
 
 are- omitted in this treatise, because, first, they give un- 
 due prominence to what is merely one symptom of i 
 serious physical derangement; second, persons showing 
 that symptom are not a unique and separate class; as has 
 been supposed, but the conditions that often exist in a 
 marked degree in many not suspected of any speech-irreg- 
 ularity are exaggerated in them ; third, the words are in 
 themselves so unpleasant and conspicuous as to be objects 
 of dread to those to whom they are applied. It would be 
 well if they could be stricken from the language. 
 
 For the same reason the word "defective" has not been 
 used. Speech-hesitation has but one cause, which is mis- 
 placed contraction. Defect in the organs of speech has no 
 connection with the subject under discussion. 
 
 Dr. L. G. Howe, at the laying of the corner-stone of a 
 public building at Syracuse, N. Y., said: "The institu- 
 tion whose foundation-stone is to be laid will be the last 
 link in a chain it will complete the circle of the State's 
 charities, which will then embrace every class whose in- 
 firmities call for public aid." Evidently the needs of one 
 great army of sufferers had never appealed even to the 
 warm heart of Dr. Howe, and they have not been very 
 well understood by anyone ; but, when teachers can work 
 under a recognized authority, it must be that the world 
 will respond to this "last" call for public benevolence. 
 
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