Kite-making in connection with schools is in line with this trend toward life-likeness. As the ideas and plans contained in this book have been worked out and carried into execution in the schools of Los Angeles by the author, they have demonstrated a wonderful socializing power. By recognizing kite-season in the schools and carrying the discussion of it into the shop and classrooms, ending with a great kite-tournament each year, not only have very many boys been reached who would not have responded to other influences, but the whole community has been stirred to sympathetic interest in the schools. This is the kind of influence which causes children to feel that school is life, and therefore makes tremendously for wholesome education. If the ideas and plans of the author can be carried out elsewhere as they have been in Los Angeles for several years, they must prove a help to the cause of education. M. C. BETTINGER, _Assistant Superintendent of Schools_. PREFACE. When we started kite work in the Los Angeles City Schools, we little thought that so great an opportunity for awakening latent power in a certain class of boys was being initiated, nor did we dream of any such kite tournaments as have been developed during the past six years. Starting with half a dozen plans, sent out on mimeographed sheets to the various schools from time to time during the spring of 1907, the number of kinds and designs have increased to a hundred or more. Other cities desiring information regarding the work, a reprint was published and has been in such demand that it was thought advisable to write a more comprehensive text on the subject. Many of the former designs have been included, but none but what should be put in more permanent form, and most of these have been redrawn for the new work. The plans are not complete in every detail, something being left for the boy to work out, but there is enough in the suggestions so that by reasonable planning, most of the forms can be made by the average boy and still something will be left for the expert. The greatest number of kites will be made by fifth and sixth year boys, but the spirit holds over into seventh and eighth for the larger and more complex forms, and even into the high school with model aeroplanes, etc.