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A young man who has stuttered from childhood tells the story of his life, frankly revealing how his "awkward tongue" has moulded the development of his mind, his personality, ambitions, and attitudes towards life. It is a very vivid and human story, of absorbing interest for everyone afflicted with a speech defect, and of unique scientific value for parents and teachers of stutterers.
Mr. Johnson describes the purpose of his unique book in the opening paragraph:
"I am a stutterer. An awkward tongue has moulded my life -- and I have only one life to live. . . . I shall try therefore, to tell what it means to stutter . . . to describe the influence that stuttering has had on the development of my personality, my ambitions, my fundamental attitudes towards life."
Mr. Johnson is a young man, now a graduate student in psychology at the University of Iowa. He has been under the treatment of specialists in the Speech Clinic at that University, and his disability is gradually yielding to treatment. His book is of unique scientific importance, for it is the first subjective stydy of stuttering ever made by a stutterer, and as an autobiography -- which in essence the book is -- of a gifted young man set apart from his fellows by "an awkward tongue," it is a deeply appealing human document.
With an introduction by Edward Lee Travis [sic], Director of the Speech Clinic in the State University of Iowa.
$1.50
D. Appleton and Company
New York London
2005****
[Title Page]
By generous encouragement and suggestions Carl Emil Seashore and Lee Edward Travis have greatly assisted me in the writing of this book. As to the subject matter, it is my own life, in which a great many people have played such parts as I am gradeful for, I regret that a more definite acknowledgment would be quite impossible.
W.J.