INTRODUCTORY LETTER1

By

ANDREW CARNEGIE, LL.D.

DEAR DR. HYDE:

I have lookt over this fine collection of good things and can not but wish that the youth of our country had the forthcoming book as a constant companion. They will find in many directions instruction, wise counsels and lofty ideals. I am sure they will not find anything of the baser sort.

One parting word to the young men and others who read this book. We hear much of forgiveness and of the dangerous belief that we can do wrong and yet that it will pass away without effect. There never was a greater mistake; the eternal laws mete out justice and know neither wrath nor pardon. We are all weaving webs in this life and if we mar that web by any act, the fault passes into the fabric, and the web is never unwound, nor is the fault obliterated; there it remains.

Of course, being what we are, our work is never without imperfections, but the good that we do should so far counterbalance the evil that the character remains and is approvd.

Amid much that the reader will find in human life that is saddening, let him always remember this — that from the erliest time until now, man has marcht upward, stedily upward to the lite; his face is turnd to the sun; that there is no pause in the ascent nor any limit to the