FARIDAS CAUSE

I was laughed at for nearly twenty years because I stammered. I found school a burden, college a practical impossibility and life a misery because of my affliction.

I was born in Wabash county, Indiana, and as far back as I can remember, there was never a time when I did not stammer or stutter. So far as I know, the halting utterance came with the first word I spoke and for almost twenty years this difficulty continued to dog me relentlessly.

When six years of age, I went to the little school house down the road, little realizing what I was to go through with there before I left.

Previous to the time I entered school, those around me were my family, my relatives and my friends-people who were very kind and considerate, who never spoke of my difficulty in my presence, and certainly never laughed at me.

At school, it was quite another matter. It was fun for the other boys to hear me speak and it was common pastime with them to get me to talk whenever possible. They would jibe and jeer-and then ask, "What did you say? Why don't you learn to talk English?" Their best entertainment was to tease and mock me until I became angry, taunt me when I did, and ridicule me at every turn.