m*- w - Clpdigital.org

NEW CURE FOR STUTTERING
By J. R. VON LENZ
O N L Y one man is in the public
eye today who does not
stutter occasionally. Not a
single man exists whose
mind could not be made to
work faster. Stuttering is cured and
minds are speeded up tremendously by
a system lately laid down by Dr. Walter
B. Swift, a physician and student of research
at Harvard.
Dr. Swift discovered in the course of
his psychological research that the one
man he knew who did not stutter had
wonderful images in his mind's eye of
everything which he thought or talked
about. That man was Billy Sunday, the
evangelist.
Billy Sunday's flow of conversation or
sermon is as fast as the most greedy
listener can assimilate, and it is colored
with marvelous word pictures.
At the same time Dr. Swift found that
one man he knew who did stutter did not
have a picture in his mind as he talked;
the doctor connected up these two facts,
"As a Picture Book His Mind is a Blank"
"If He Will Stop and Trv to Visualize. His Stammering
Will Cease"
added them and found that they pointed
to a conclusion. Then he went to work
to prove his conclusion.
Among fifty stutterers whom Doctor
Swift examined not one of them ei'er
had mental images! That is, when a
stutterer thinks about a dog crossing the
street he does not have an image in his
mind's eye of a dog crossing the street.
As a picture-book his mind is a blank.
Every person who sees clear mental
images is an individual whose mind
works rapidly. This speed is such an
easy thing to cultivate that everyone
whose images are hazy and indefinite
ought to practice by the use of will
power until he sharpens up his power of
imagery, and hence his mind.
Stuttering can be caused by anything
that disturbs the mind, such as a transfer
from right to left-handedness, a
blow on the head, a violent mental shock
of any kind, fear, embarrassment or
anger. It can be cured in almost evencase
by willing the appearance of mental
25