CHAPTER III

THE BOGUE GUARANTEE AND WHAT IT MEANS

No matter what caused your stammering, no matter how old you are, how long you have stammered, how many times you have tried to be cured--no matter what you think about your case or whether you believe it to be curable--if I have diagnosed your trouble and p.r.o.nounced it curable, then I can cure YOU.

By the application of the Bogue Unit Method, I can eradicate the cause of your trouble at its very source, and re-establish normal co-ordination between your brain and the muscles of speech, removing every trace of that "mental expectancy" which you call "fear-of-failure."

I can show you how to place your articulation under perfect control, how to make the formation of words an easy process involving no apparent mental effort or noticeable physical exertion.

I can teach you how to produce any sound or combination of sounds, how to make every word an easy word and every sound an easy sound.

I can show you how to talk without stammering--how to talk just as freely and fluently as any normal person who has never stammered.

I not only claim to be able to do this for you, I back it up with a past record of success in treating hundreds of cases similar to your own. Like cures like. What has cured others like you, will cure YOU.

But I don't ask you to risk a single penny upon even that evidence and proof. The moment you enroll in the Bogue Inst.i.tute, I will issue to you and place in your hands, a written Guarantee Certificate, over my own signature, binding me to cure you of stammering or refund every cent of the money which you have paid me for tuition fee, and asking you only to follow the easy instructions given under the Bogue Unit Method.

You are to be the sole judge as to whether or not you follow instructions.

I will leave it entirely to you to decide. All I ask of you is full opportunity to do my best for you and absolute honesty, such as you expect and will receive from me.

I want to be absolutely fair with you--I want to cure you as I have cured myself and hundreds of other stammerers. I do not want a dollar of your money unless I have given you a dollar's worth of benefit in return. I would not keep a penny of the money that you might have paid me for cure of your stammering unless I had actually cured you, provided, of course, that you had followed the instructions which anybody of ordinary intelligence over eight years of age can easily follow.

I have no fear of your dealing dishonestly with me. I know enough about human nature to know that all you want is to be cured--and you understand that to be cured you must co-operate with me to that end. I can cure your stammering only with your co-operation--just as a music teacher can make a pianist of you only with your co-operative and sincere effort. Therefore, I ask only that you follow my instructions carefully and faithfully--and I guarantee to bestow upon you the same gift of Perfect Speech that I have bestowed upon hundreds of now-happy men and women--and I put that guarantee in writing over my personal signature.

CHAPTER IV

THE CURE IS PERMANENT

No one who stammers should put any faith in a cure for his trouble unless the results are known to be permanent. A temporary cure is no cure at all and should be avoided, for it is merely a means of wasting money.

The Bogue Unit Method brings about not only a complete but a permanent cure. The secret of its success as far as permanency is concerned, lies in the fact that the basic cause of the trouble is removed at its very source, the wrong methods rooted out and the correct methods installed in their place.

Once this process is completed and the cure effected, the cure is permanently insured, because its very cause is gone. You cannot stammer without a cause--everyone understands that.

The proof of the permanency of the cure is attested by the many letters from those who were here ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. A woman cured at the Inst.i.tute ten years ago writes:

"At 14 I was a very bad stammerer. I then attended the Bogue Inst.i.tute, where I was completely cured in a few weeks. I then secured a position as saleslady in one of our leading stores where I have been called upon to handle as many as one hundred sales in a single day. I have never stammered once. My cure has been absolutely perfect for the past ten years. It was certainly a lucky day that I walked into Mr. Bogue's office the first time."

Another excellent proof of the permanency of the cure, is the subjection of the cured student to tremendous mental and nervous strain. Many of our former students were in the Great War, numbers of them right up in the front line where the fighting was stiffest and where the nervous and mental strain was terrific. Even under this test (which was enough to make a normal person become a stammerer--and many of them did) the results of the Bogue Unit Method held them to normal speech. One young man writes:

"I completely regained my speech at the Bogue Inst.i.tute in 1915. I enlisted in the army and was sent overseas in the spring of '18, and went through some of the hardest fighting the 42nd Division was in, that being the Division I was transferred to, and am happy to say the speech trouble has never come back on me. I was wounded by a fragment of high explosive sh.e.l.l. One hit me under the right arm, fracturing two ribs. Another struck my shoulder and a piece ranged downward into my right lung, which now remains there. I developed tuberculosis in November, in all probability from exposure as much as the wound. I was evacuated to the U.S. early last winter and sent to this place, where I am rapidly regaining my health and expect to be discharged about September 1st.

"With all the hard experience I went through, stammering did not come back to me. I have never regretted the time I spent with your Inst.i.tute, and I have only the highest words of praise for the work being done in the Bogue Inst.i.tute."

Another severe test of a cure of stammering is an illness such as may have brought the trouble on in the first place. If the stammerer, for instance, can undergo an attack of influenza or pneumonia and come out of it without difficulty, it proves beyond all question of a doubt that the cure is permanent.

For that reason, I wish to quote the letter of an Illinois boy who says:

"I am getting along fine with my speech. I am sure I will never stammer again. I was sick the week after Christmas with pneumonia but it did not bother me a bit."

Another young man says:

"It is now nearly six months since I left the Inst.i.tute and in that time I have not stammered a word. What do you think about that? It surely is fine. But you know that. I was in Chicago last week and visited friends and saw a doctor friend of mine who did not know that I had been away, so he just stood there and looked at me, and said, 'You are talking fine. How did you learn that?'

"I told him and then talked to him for four hours and he said it was the best thing that had ever happened to me." Another letter, this time from Honolulu and from a man who attended the Inst.i.tute a number of years ago, says:

"Just to let you know that I am still alive and enjoying life as I never have before. I have forgotten that I ever stammered. Sincere thanks to you."

This young man is now an engineer in the employ of the United Shipping Board.

These letters give the answer better than I can--better than any scientist can because they tell the real truth taken from the experience of those who have tried and know--

First--That stammering can be cured by the Bogue Unit Method!

Second--That the cure is a permanent cure!

CHAPTER V

A PRICELESS GIFT--AN EVERLASTING INVESTMENT

There is no gift that can take the place of perfect speech. It is beyond price--and the person who talks after stammering would give all his possessions to keep from going back again to stammering.

But Freedom-of-Speech is more than a priceless gift--it is a wonderful investment. Should you ask: "Does it pay to be cured of stammering?"

the answer could be nothing but "Yes"--and there is evidence aplenty to prove it.

One young man writes:

"I have never enjoyed life as I have since I left the Inst.i.tute, both in a business and social way. I am to get a 25% increase in my salary the first of the month, which is at least partially due to my wonderful perfection of speech."

Does it pay--? Does a 25 per cent. increase in salary pay? Here is the case of a young woman who was about to lose her position because of her imperfection in speech--yet when she returned home after being cured at the Inst.i.tute, she wrote:

"I was very much surprised when I went down to the office yesterday to find that I was going to get my place back again. This evening, Mr.--told me that I was to get a 33 1/3% raise at the end of next week, so my stay with you has already begun to pay dividends."

Freedom-from-Stammering PAYS--in dollars and cents. On a cold business basis, it is one of the best investments to be made. One man who attended here a few years ago was a fireman in a large factory, stoking boilers all day long. Today he is salesman--and the head salesman at that--for the same firm--he makes as much as the President of the firm.

He works on commission--and he knows how to talk so as to sell.