Considerably more than a third of a century has elapsed since I
purchased my first book on stammering. I still have that quaint
little book made up in its typically English style with small
pages, small type and yellow paper back--the work of an English
author whose obtuse and half-baked theories certainly lent no
clarity to the stammerer's understanding of his trouble. Since
that first purchase my library of books on stammering has grown
until it is perhaps the largest individual collection in the
world. I have read these books--many of them several times,
pondered over the obscurities in some, smiled at the absurdities
in others and benefited by the truths in a few. Yet, with all
their profound explanations of theories and their verbose defense
of hopelessly unscientific methods, the stammerer would be
disappointed indeed, should he attempt to find in the entire
collection a practical and understandable discussion of his
trouble.

This insufficiency of existing books on stammering has encouraged
me to bring out the present volume. It is needed. I know this--
because I spent almost twenty years of my life in a well-nigh
futile search for the very knowledge herein revealed. I haunted
the libraries, was a familiar figure in book stores and a frequent
visitor to the second-hand dealer. Yet these efforts brought me
comparatively little--not one-tenth the information that this book
contains.

Perhaps it is but a colossal conceit that prompts me to offer this
volume to those who stutter and stammer as I did. Yet, I cannot