DALE CARNEGIE rose from the obscurity of a Missouri farm to international fame because he found a way to fill a universal human need.
It was a need that he first recognized back in 1906. At that time, young Dale Carnegie was in his junior year at State Teachers College in Warrensburg, Mo. To get an education, he was struggling against many odds. His family was poor. His Dad couldn't afford the board at college, so Dale had to ride horseback six miles each way to attend classes. Study had to be done between his farm chores. He withdrew from many school activities because he didn't have the time or the clothes. He had only one good suit. He tried for the football squad, but the coach turned him down for being too light. During this period Dale Carnegie was slowly developing an inferiority complex, the complex that could prevent him from achieving his real potential. Dale's mother knew this and suggested that he join the debating team. She knew that practice in speaking could give him the confidence and recognition that he needed.
Dale took his mother's advice, tried for the team and after several attempts finally made it. This proved to be a turning point in his life. Speaking before groups did help him gain the confidence and assurance he needed. Within a year he was winning debating contests and was on his way to garnering laurels in all the speech departments of & State Teachers College. By the time Dale Carnegie was a senior, he had won every top honor in speech. Now other students were coming to him for coaching and they, in turn, were winning contests.
Out of this early struggle to overcome his feelings of inferiority, Dale Carnegie came to understand that the ability to express an idea to an audience of one or one hundred builds a person's confidence. And, with confidence, Dale Carnegie knew he could do anything he wanted to do— and so could others.
It was from this idea that Dale Carnegie developed the course that Lowell Thomas calls "the greatest movement in adult education that the world has ever known."
After college. Dale Carnegie found an attractive offer awaiting him in selling. He accepted and within a short time was highly successful. Despite his growing reputation for breaking quota records, he quit his selling career after a relatively brief period. He quit because as time went on he knew he had to test his idea that effective speaking could give a man the confidence he needed to make the most of his latent abilities. It was with this idea that Dale Carnegie headed for New York.
Two weeks after leaving Warrensburg, he was talking to the directors of the 23rd Street Y.M.C.A. in Manhattan. Dale Carnegie thought that the "Y" would be a good starting point for his course. The directors didn't think so. Flatly, they said that the "Y" couldn't afford to pay him the regular $2.00 teaching fee for a course that was untried, unknown. But when he persisted and offered to organize and teach the course on a commission basis, the directors agreed to let hiri. give it a try.
On October 22, 1912. Dale Carnegie started-his first class. Within months, the course proved so popular that the "Y" directors, instfad of paving hin. the regular $2.00-a-night fee, were paving hin- $30 00 a night in commissions.
Y.M.C.A. directors in adjacent cities heard of the success that Dale Carnegie was having in New York and wanted this course in their adult education programs. Then other service clubs swelled the demand and before long Dale Carnegie was working dav and night teaching the principles that a few years before had gone unrecognized and unwanted.
During this period. Dale Carnegie was introducing human-relations principles into his course. In addition to being able to speak effectively, he knew that people wanted to learn how to live and work more harmoniously with others. He was steadily researching and writing on this subject. He put his principles into booklets, and they were eagerly read and practiced by his students.
In 1933, Leon Shimkin, president of Simon and Schuster, Inc., enrolled in the course in Larchmont, N.Y. He was impressed not only with the speaking aspects of the training but with the benefits of the human-relations principles. He saw great possibilities for a book. He suggested to Dale Carnegie that he gather all the material he had been teaching his students and adapt it for a book.
On November 12, 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People was published, and it became an overnight success. Dale Carnegie became a name known in every household. The book sold over a million copies in less than a year and was printed abroad in fourteen languages. For ten years it stayed on The New York Times' best-seller list, an all-time record for any book. Today, more than two decades after its publication, it is still selling over 250,000 copies a year and has topped the 7,500,000 figure.
Now, as you read and profit from this book, you'll be interested in knowing that the course from which this book was written is presented in 1,077 cities in the United States and Canada and in forty-five countries abroad. This vast educational system is headed by Dale Carnegie's widow,
Dorothy, who helped him build the course and establish it around the globe.
For information regarding the availability of the Dale Carnegie Courses in your area, consult your telephone book or write to Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., (Dept. A), 1475 Franklin Avenue, Garden City, New York 11530.
Other books by Dale Carnegie
How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living Published by POCKET BOOKS
