The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-01-08
ARTIFICIAL SPEECH.
SPEECH INEPEDfMENTS ON THE IN
CREASE AMONG NERVOUS
AMERICANS.

balanced Tongue the Root OF Such
Trouble.
New York. JAN 6-stuttering and STAN
! mering, drawing, hspng or any defects
! Of speech are among conditions that
science has lately taken under her wing
| with the most remarkable results.
Fifty years ago few diseases common
| to The human race were regarded as more
| hopelessly mysterious than stammering.
| Those who had had no better luck than to
| be born into this weary world with cleft
| paiates bore the aff1iction as best they
| might, for only in the last decade since
| the younger generation show so marked
| an increase IN speech impediments. has
science been stirred up to her motherly
| duty. She is doing it now, and so beauti-
| fully and thoroughly, that in case a baby
| is born with d cleft palate, a hair lin and
| a stammering tongue altogether, proper
care in infancy cOrrects all these infirmi!
ties, aud there need be no straighter talker
| or more inveterate chatterbox in the
| block.
The surgeon who closes The opening in
the roof Of the mouth does It so deity
that no sign Of the malformation ever re-
mains. and performs the operation when
| the child is not more than six weeks old
on reaching maturity such a nice bit Of
human carpentry is impossible, and the
only resource then is a false palate that is
fitted by dentist Untl recently this
device was a doubtful sort of aid, as ii
improved speech very slightly.
There are few knotty points science can
not ravel out when she really tries, and to
an American woman is due the credit of
evolving a clever system for training an
undisciplined tongue to do it's duty Miss
Warren.h has developed little specially in
teaching children with unbalanced tongues
to acquire normal speech. The exercise
she utilities are neither difficult to under
stand nor apply. and they have 10 do mere
iy with the workings of he tongue.
With nearly all defects save stammer-
ing, the trouble lies right behind the
teeth. The tongue in speech is thrust too
far forward or held too far back, its mus
lies are weak a one end or the other; in
short this useful little instrument needs
only 10 be perfectly balanced and strength
ened, and it can successfully get through
more work in day than any other part of
the body.
Now these are some of the simple condi-
tons and cure that half a century ago
were as undreamed of as underground
trolleys. and yet serve wonderfully to nit
igate the nerve wracking life of our
times.
Into the school room of the teacher fer
| speech defects come all sorts and condi-
| tons of men and women who wish to nave
| The kinks taken out of their tongues and
| some of them are helped with the CELEBRITY
| an occulist displays in piucking a trouble
some cnder from your eye. To the high
| spirited clergyman, who is nervous over his
! habit of drawing out the prayers, is given
! one little exercise for bringing his reading
| tempo up 10 the required brisk time to
| the actor who nsps another series of
| tongue gymnastics is ordered as a curative
| and she can show a sufferer how to get
| the best of his trouble.
| half century ago a class in speech de-
| fects would not have warranted the eXpen-
| diture of time and trouble in it's teaching.
| In the first place, because about half as
| many persons were born with such i'm
| pediments; also because those who were
| afflicted, either had more faith in the sur
! geon's knife or their own skill in covering
up the trouble. The surgeons used to
| slash about independently in those good
| old days, Sitting the uvula, whacking off
| tOnsils, knocking out teeth or advising pa
| tents to try Demosthene's cure.
| DIR. Alexander Melville Bell the first
| man who set out scientifically to cure
! defects. has pretty well demolished the
myth about Demosthene's stammering.
| The great orators chief defect was an in
| ability to pronounce the letter r, and the
! pebbles We're used to restrain the habit of
| suddenly shutting his teeth together. DIR.
| Bell laughs at the pebble as a cure, just
! as he advises no one to adopt the plan of
! another great orator namely, Phillips
| Brooks who to conceal an infirmity in
| speech, fell into the way of speaking at
! a rate of more than 200 words a minute.
| Just as other defects in the use of the
| tongue, were less common fifty years ago,
! stammerng was not so prevailing
an atfiicton. In this nervous age STAN
mering appears in a peculiarly severe
|
| St Vitus' dance, is too often hereditary,
| will follow up illnesses, fasten upon an
adult after whooping cough. and in one
| instance il attacked a clever business man
| after a period of nervous prostration
| This is almost as mysterious and in
! some cases as painful and incurable a
trouble as ever, but if a child is put under
| the proper training with a competent
| teacher, the commissions that distort its
efforts at speech can be soothed and
| Strengthened into absolute control of the
tongue. For years well-meaning persons
! filed the stammerer first with hope and
| then despair by attempting to rid him
! of his trouble by a series of foolish tricks
Opening and shutting one hand rapidly
when trying to speak, swinging the arms
solemnly wagging the head a couple of
time before each word, or striking the
side violently with the elbow, all comical
devices advocated as aids to subdue those
painful convulsive contortions of the
| mouth.
| In later years a perfectly reasonable and
! beneficial system of instruction has been
| developed to reach this ever growing class
of sufferers. Women, and it is easy to
| understand why, prove to be the best in
structors for stammerers. They have the
natural instinct of the scx for Influencing
and guiding children, while with the adult
stammerer they understand how to use the
tact and encouragement necessary to over
come the sensitiveness and dependency
| so TYPICAL of those on whom this disease
has been long fastened.
A case in point was that of little boy
Z years old, who was brought to an expert
| instructress to be actually taught to speak
A nervous child by nature, his trouble
! had increased until he lost all power of
making any distinct speech sounds His
tongue absolutely refused to obey the de-
mands OF his brain, and of neither Eng.
| lish nor German, both of which languages
were familiar to him, could he form a
] word o int