sensitive to the changing currents of present-day life than Dale
Carnegie. He constantly improved and refined his methods of teaching; he updated his book on Effective Speaking several times.
Had he lived longer, he himself would have revised How to Win
Friends and Influence People to better reflect the changes that have taken place in the world since the thirties.
Many of the names of prominent people in the book, well known at the time of first publication, are no longer recognized by many of today's readers. Certain examples and phrases seem as quaint and dated in our social climate as those in a Victorian novel. The important message and overall impact of the book is weakened to that extent.
Our purpose, therefore, in this revision is to clarify and strengthen the book for a modern reader without tampering with the content.
We have not "changed" How to Win Friends and Influence People except to make a few excisions and add a few more contemporary examples. The brash, breezy Carnegie style is intact-even the thirties slang is still there. Dale Carnegie wrote as he spoke, in an …show more content…
I loved to build fires myself when I was a boy - and I still love to.
But you know they are very dangerous here in the park. I know you boys don't mean to do any harm, but other boys aren't so careful.
They come along and see that you have built a fire; so they build one and don't put it out when they go home and it spreads among the dry leaves and kills the trees. We won't have any trees here at all if we aren't more careful, You could be put in jail for building this fire. But I don't want to be bossy and interfere with your pleasure. I like to see you enjoy yourselves; but won't you please rake all the leaves away from the fire right now - and you'll be careful to cover it with dirt, a lot of dirt, before you leave, won't you? And the next time you want to have some fun, won't you please build your fire over the hill there in the sandpit? It can't do any harm there.. . .
Thanks so much, boys. Have a good time."
What a difference that kind of talk made! It made the boys want to cooperate. No sullenness, no resentment. They hadn't been forced to obey orders. They had saved their faces. They felt better and I felt better because I had handled the situation with consideration for their point of