IT

T seems a grave error to take away a man's false gods1 until the iconoclast has a better deity to substitute for those destroyed. This holds true of human beliefs in all departments of endeavor, for the abiding faith in the manner or method of both learning and imparting an art-form must be absolute. The article, to which this one is a reply, seems so radical, so destructive of the creeds hitherto preached and honestly believed by vocal teachers and pupils, that an effort is now made to defend much that the editor of WERNER'S MAGAZINE, in the said article, would destroy.

The curious case cited of the soldier who being wounded in the battle of Mariquina found himself on recovery entirely rid of his speech-defect (or stuttering), forms an excellent text on which to base the paper under discussion, but the writer wanders so far afield and says so many things which utterly condemn methods now in vogue in the curing of speechdisorders, that a defense seems demanded by a practical teacher who finds much of value in the so-called empirical system in vocal science.

First to close the soldier incident. Aside from giving an excellent reason for the writing of these essays, it can have little practical bearing upon the cure of stuttering, for whether the remedy prove permanent or not in the case of Private Redmond, few stutterers would risk a Mauser bullet even

if a cure were scientifically guaranteed.

Mr. Werner says that "stuttering does not come from malformation of the organs, but from wrong activity of the organs." This is an old, accepted theory. He then proceeds to account for the phenomenon of Redmond's speech correction by the bullet (in passing through the head) changing the "physical formation." Next it is declared to be unimportant whether the bullet "wrought the change in the innervation or in the structure itself."4 To those of us engaged in voice. and speech-work this matter is all important, for if in this and similar cases a malformation was lopped off by the penetrating bullet, the same office may perhaps be performed by the surgeon's knife or by cauterization. In fact, here the labors of the voice-teacher would be worse than useless. If the change in "innervation" be what actually took place, the remedy lies rather in the hands of the voice-culturist than with the physician.

Again, why take it for granted that "the soldier loses his stuttering by losing a part of his muscular tissue, or by losing the power to innervate (charge with nerve-force) that particular muscular tissue that hitherto has, by acting, disturbed the speech act?" Quite the reverse of the latter part of this assertion is perhaps more near the truth. Let us say that the bullet caused a gain, not a loss; that the shock to the nervous system inner

vated (put into action) certain muscular tissue, which hitherto by non-acting disturbed the speech-act. It must not be forgotten for a moment that stuttering is an interference, an interruption of the speech-function, and that we have to conclude where there is known to be no malformation," that "muscular tissue," breath, nerve or brain by not acting causes all the trouble.

Let us run through the former article and show the reverse side of some of the statements made. An allusion is made to the "lack of knowledge of the physiology of speech," and it is said that "we know not for certainty just what takes place during the speech-act."

Scientists can dispute this. The physiology of speech is perfectly understood, and we know exactly what takes place in the speech-act when speech is normal. Voice is primarily sound and as such belongs to the department of acoustics in physics. Every law of acoustics was discovered and demonstrated with mathematical precision even long before the discovery of the laryngoscope. Nothing in nature disobeys nature's law. Thus the action of the voice-apparatus has long been logically proven to come under the laws governing all other sounds. We even class the voice as an instrument and exact of it the same obedience to the laws governing its kind that we do of instruments of man's construction. Scientific investigation (dissection and the use of the laryngoscope) has simply verified our conclusions.10

In this connection let us say that the laryngoscope has not proved so inutile as our author would have us believe; it does make normal speech impossible, but not phonation, as he asserts.11 The little mirror reflects

perfectly the action and position of the voice-mechanism when placed in the mouth during certain sounds like a guffawing laugh or during the emission of open-mouthed interjections. So much for this much-abused little instrument.

No, the trouble is not that we do not know just what the laws are governing vocal action, but that the mechanism itself cannot be controlled by centering our thoughts, our will, upon the apparatus. We might even learn what tension of the vocal cords is required. to give a certain pitch of tone, but try you ever so hard to give the cords that tension and there is no way of accomplishing it, but by the indirect method. of thinking the tone.12 The muscles governing the voice in song and speech are many of them involuntary,13 not susceptible to conscious control. Note, "many of them," for there are others absolutely voluntary, those governing the movements of jaw, tongue, lips, nose, and above all the breathing mechanism.

Thus the use of the voluntary muscles of the speech-act may be taught; and my experience is, that the speechpatient errs more frequently in the use of the speech-elements logically susceptible to conscious manipulation1* than in those which must be controlled indirectly.

In claiming that the physiology of speech is perfectly understood we do not say that the physiology of the individual stutterer or stammerer is known, or that we may know with any exactness wherein the action is wrong. Every case1 presents its own problems; but we know exactly what the action should be of the normal speaker; we can hear wrong sound and can see wrong action in part; and we can learn and teach the control of much of this; and by superinducing

right thinking upon what, for practical purposes, is involuntary muscular action, bring about normal conditions.

An effort is made here to keep the words "see" and "speech" far apart. The term "visible speech" has always seemed an absurdity to the present writer and he has done much to combat it. The Germans with their "klang-tint" are woefully fanciful. Such terms are not helpful, only hindrances. When a vocal teacher speaks of "a red voice," or of a "yellow" one, we understand the reference only by arbitrary arrangement, but for all time the application will only be figurative. Each of the five senses has its organ or organs for the perception (reception, if you choose) of its proper function. Thus speech is meant solely for the ear; by the ear it is received and tested; and though much of its action is seen (and seeing is a helpful agent in the formation of speech), the action is no more heard than the speech is

seen.

Nor is it true that "the invisibility of speech places the efforts of the teacher, etc., to remedy defects into the realm of empiricism." The ear is the gauge of tone (voice and speech), as the eye is of line or color. Speech was not intended, in nature's plan, to appeal to the organ of sight, and all attempts so to appreciate it must end in inglorious failure. We have not said. that the action of speech, the external movements which he who runs may read, are not to be used in the cure of stuttering; on the contrary, what the student sees, nay, what he feels by actually touching the organs concerned in producing normal speech in another, are all to be reckoned with. But when all is said and done, the ear is the chief ministrant in the disease, for disease it is.

You may know how earnestly this

is said when I record that not a single case of stuttering has come under my notice in which the action of the ear was normal !16 The great point made in "The Visualizing of Stuttering" is that those of us engaged in "healing" stutterers are "analytic instead of synthetic."

some

The synthetic method in instruction has become rather a fatal 17 idea. In departments of education it serves well, in others not at all. Nature 18 directs us to two courses of study. We take a block of marble as a whole and chisel it to required shape and proportions; but we build a house piece by piece; and the latter method is more prevalent in nature; not the tree first, then the tender seedling!

To teach the stutterer to speak normally by a synthetic method is tantamount to saying, "Just talk, never mind the 'how,' 19-use the whole language." Why not expect a child to acquire the whole English vocabulary at one "fell swoop"? It comes. instead word by word, and, further back yet, sound by sound.

"Speech is the outcome of imitation. He (a child) learns speech synthetically, unconsciously, cerebrally." These words quoted from one paragraph give a flat contradiction one to the other; scientifically there is no such thing as unconscious imitation.20 We may imitate without the full concentration of all the brain matter on the thing to be imitated; just as a man may write one word and mean another, say one thing and intend something quite different; still there is no unconscious cerebration here; both acts are conscious, but one predominantly so.

This experience of the brain action. has been of the greatest use in the cure of stuttering. We have learned from it that neither too great nor too small a concentration of thought will enable

the patient to talk smoothly or clearly. Both are equally fatal. A lax, halfhearted use of the brain to direct speech will not give sufficient motive power to put the mechanism into motion; too great concentration locks it, closes the throat, stiffens the tongue,

etc.

This

last-named method is responsible for most failures in correcting speech-impediments. The pupil is told there is simply a lack of willpower, that if he makes up his mind to say a thing he can say it. The sputtering result we need not describe.21 Perhaps it is with knowledge of this experience that Mr. Werner has been tempted to swing the pendulum too far the other way in his cry for reform, for he goes on to describe a child's manner of learning to speak, and calls what is known to be not only conscious but analytic imitation, unconscious and synthetic. The infant starts with a tone (vowel) "oo"-or "ah" or "a," and learns the consonants one at a time, his early efforts being repetitions,-"pa-pa," "da-da," "ma-ma," etc. The child does this not only in conscious imitation of sounds (hearing), but of movements (sight) as he rivets attention on lips of speaker. It is said that a child learns language much more readily from the uncovered lips of the mother than from the bearded and mustache-hidden lips of the father. Philology teaches that all languages grew sound by sound; as with the race so with the individual. "The way a child learns to talk is the way the stutterer must learn to talk." We use the words of the article in the August magazine, but put an entirely different construction upon "the way."

The sounds of the language must be mastered consciously until their use has become almost unconscious. 22 A man who has been crippled is con

scious of every step he takes while in the period of convalescence; every step is taken with full design. On complete recovery he may go about unconscious that he "walks with his legs and feet."

Let us be careful in controverting what has been written by the other party to this discussion not to leave anything but contradictions. Let us try to talk openly. Remember that each case is individual, and that these recommended exercises are not applicable to all.

During the act of stuttering in most cases the diaphragm acts contrary to the speaker's needs; may even cause an inhalation of the breath when an exhalation is demanded for utterance. This "sucking in" of the breath sometimes causes a gasping sound. To correct this, breathing-exercises, such as any reliable teacher or text-book on elocution will give, must be practiced assiduously. When the breathing is normal (or has been acquired), the breath must be transformed into tone (for the vowel sounds). This is done by imitation-there is no other way: the conscious effort directed by the ear to reproduce sounds as you hear them. The action of the voice-apparatus is facilitated by certain adjustments of tongue, jaws, lips, to suit certain sounds. These adjustments have to be learned. The chances are that in nine cases out of ten the stutterer is trying to accomplish the impossible by attempting to utter one sound with another sound's position.23

For consonants-here is something not always realized-any halting or stumbling over a consonantal sound is not a voice or tone-defect! The voicebox [larynx] is not in play at all during the production of a consonant. The sound is made in the outer air24 by the way that the breath direct from