THE QUICK AND EASY TO WAY EFFECTIVE SPEAKING

Introduction D le Carnegie began teaching his first public speaking course in 1912 for the YMCA at 125th Street in New York City. In those dys, public speaking was regarded as an art, rather than as a skill, and teaching aims were directed toward producing orators and platform gants of the silver-tongued variety. The average business or professional man who merely wanted to express himself with more ease and self-confidence in his own milieu did not wish to spend his me or money studying mechanics of speech, voice production, rules of rhetoric, and formalized gestures. Dale Carnegie's courses in effective speaking were immediately successful because they gave Bese men the results they wanted. Dale approached public speaking mot as a fine art requiring special talents and aptitude, but as a skill which any normally intelligent person could acquire and develop at will. Today, the Dale Carnegie courses circle the globe and the validity of Dale Carnegie's concept is attested to by thousands of his students everywhere, men and women from every walk of life, who have successfully improved their speaking as well as their personal effectiveness. The textbook Dale Carnegie wrote for his courses, Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business, went through more than fifty printings, was translated into eleven languages, and was revised by Dale Carnegie several times to keep pace with his own increased knowledge and experience. More people used the book each year than the combined enrollments of the largest universities. The fourth revision of the book has been based upon my husband's own notes and ideas. The title is one which he himself chose before his work was interrupted by death. I have tried to keep in mind his basic philosophy, that effective speaking is more than "saying a few words" to an audience: it is the revealing expression of a human personality.