The Art of Public Speaking

 

by J. Berg Esenwein and Dale Carnagey

 

TO F. ARTHUR METCALF

 

FELLOW-WORKER AND FRIEND

 

Things to Think of First

 

A FOREWORD

 

The efficiency of a book is like that of a man, in one important respect: its

attitude toward its subject is the first source of its power. A book may be full

of good ideas well expressed, but if its writer views his subject from the wrong

angle even his excellent advice may prove to be ineffective.

 

This book stands or falls by its authors' attitude toward its subject. If the

best way to teach oneself or others to speak effectively in public is to fill

the mind with rules, and to set up fixed standards for the interpretation of

thought, the utterance of language, the making of gestures, and all the rest,

then this book will be limited in value to such stray ideas throughout its pages

as may prove helpful to the reader--as an effort to enforce a group of

principles it must be reckoned a failure, because it is then untrue.