Transcriber’s Note: In Memory of Chris Curnow (1937-2023) the Project Manager at Distributed Proofreaders who selected this book, and more than 2200 others, to be preserved as free digital transcriptions by Project Gutenberg. * * * * * [Illustration] KITECRAFT AND KITE TOURNAMENTS BY CHARLES M. MILLER ASSISTANT SUPERVISOR OF MANUAL TRAINING LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [Illustration] THE MANUAL ARTS PRESS PEORIA, ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT, CHARLES M. MILLER, 1914. _The North Wind is my prancing steed, The Bridle is my kite; I’ll harness him, I’ll drive him, ’Till my kite’s most out of sight._ M. _I saw you toss the kites on high, And blow the birds about the sky, And all about I heard you pass, Like ladies’ skirts across the grass._ Stevenson. INTRODUCTION. Perhaps the one word that best expresses the trend of education at the present time is the word life-likeness. The trend is toward more and more life-likeness in organization and methods. The effort toward diversification which has resulted in putting manual training into courses of study, in multiplying courses in high schools, in providing ungraded and other special rooms in elementary schools, in breaking grades up into groups for teaching and promotions, in keeping playgrounds and shops open afternoons and Saturdays, in opening the school buildings evenings for social centers or socialized evening schools,--which has resulted in all these changes and others that might be mentioned,--is simply an effort to make the schools like life. The theory behind this is that if a school is like life, children will like school for the same reason that they like life, and the theory is sound. Before these changes were introduced, our public schools were a composite structure, made up nearly altogether of two elements, neither of which was in any degree life-like. These two elements were the medieval monastery, for order, and the 19th century factory, for process.