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The Teacher’s Guide to
Scratch – Beginner

The Teacher’s Guide to Scratch – Beginner is a practical guide for educators

preparing beginners-level coding lessons and assignments in their K–12
classrooms. The world’s largest and most active visual programming
platform, Scratch helps today’s schools answer the growing call to realize
important learning outcomes using coding and computer science. This book
illustrates the benefits and fundamental building blocks of Scratch coding,
details effective pedagogical strategies and learner collaborations, and offers
actionable, accessible troubleshooting tips. Geared toward the fledgling user,
these four unique coding projects will provide the technical training that
teachers need to feel comfortable and confident in their skills and to help
instil the same feeling of accomplishment in their students. Clear goals, a
comprehensive glossary, and other features ensure the project’s enduring
relevance as a reference work for computer science education in grade school.
Thanks to Scratch’s cost-effective open-source license, suitability for blended
and project-based learning, notable lack of privacy or security risks, and
consistency in format even amid software and interface updates, this will be
an enduring practitioner manual and professional development resource for
years to come.

Kai Hutchence is CEO and Founder of Massive Corporation Game Studios

as well as its subdivision, Massive Learning, which focuses on educational
products and services. Through his established coding support partnerships
with elementary, middle and high schools, post-secondary institutions, and
provincial and national organizations, Kai has taught over 20,000 students to
code and over 2,000 educators to code and teach coding.
The Teacher’s Guide to
Scratch – Beginner
Professional Development for
Coding Education

Kai Hutchence
Designed cover image: © iStock
First published 2024
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 Kai Hutchence
The right of Kai Hutchence to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-032-49908-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-44817-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-39901-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003399018
Typeset in Palatino
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Additional copyediting and developmental editing provided by Gui de Souza
Rocha.
Scratch is a project of the Scratch Foundation, in collaboration with the
Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at
https://scratch.mit.edu.
The Scratch name, Scratch logo, Scratch Day logo, Scratch Cat, and Gobo are
Trademarks owned by the Scratch Team and are used for identification and do
not constitute or imply ownership or endorsement by the Scratch Foundation or
Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.
With thanks to Gui de Souza Rocha and Terry Hoganson for their assistance,
encouragement, editing, testing, and feedback.
 Contents

Meet the Author xiii

Forewordxiv
Reader’s Key xvii

1 Why This Series? 1

The Digital Revolution 2
The Problems 3
The Good 4
What This Book Series Is 7
The Why of Coding Education 7
Scratch Basics 8
Beginner Projects 8
Follow-Up8
Troubleshooting9
Glossary9

2 Why Coding? 10
Digital Careers 10
Automation11
Sociological11
Opportunities12
Creativity12
Thinking13
Engaging14

3 Why Scratch? 16
Accessibility and Approachability 16
Non-Commercial17
Language Support 17
Block Coding 17
Visual 19
Simple 19
Tactile 19
Modes of Access 20
Audio-Visual Feedback 21
viii ◆ Contents

Capability21
Computer Science Fundamentals 22
Digital Art 22
Extensions24
Powerful Backing 24
Community25
Inspiration25
Sharing26
Openness28

4 Scratch Basics 29
Website29
Accounts and Saving 31
Project Pages 32
Remixing32
The Scratch Editor 33
The Status Bar 34
Design Tabs 35
Stage Window 35
The Code Tab 38
Code Block Library 38
Coding Workspace 39
Colour and Categories 41
Shapes and Connections 42
Values and Data Input 45
Events, Triggering, and Timing 47
The Costumes or Backdrop Tab 47
Asset List 48
Sizing and Centring 48
Scaling and Rotating 49
Vector vs. Pixel 50
Art Tools 51
Art Tool Properties 54
Compositing 54
Undo 56
The Sounds Tab 56
Projects57
Sprite Listing 58
Stage58
Stage Code 60
Backdrops61
Stage Sounds 61
 Contents ◆ ix

Sprites or Objects 61
Adding Sprites 61
Arranging and Deleting Sprites 63
Properties63
Code64
Costumes65
Sounds65
Next Step 65

5 Defining Beginner Scratch 66

Beginner Scratch Attitudes 66
Beginner Goals 67

6 Beginner Project 1: Dino Dance Party 68

What This Project Is 68
What We’re Learning with It 68
Building It 69
Step 0: Create Your New Project 69
Step 1: Adding a Background 69
Step 2: Adding the Dinosaurs 72
Step 3: Animating the Dinosaurs 72
Step 4: Copying and Pasting Code 75
Step 5: Brontosaurus Beatboxing 77
Step 6: Highlight Animation 78
Step 7: The Music Is Bopping 78
Step 8: The Whole Crew Is Jumping 80
Step 9: Double Up 82
Step 10: Volume Control 83

7 Beginner Project 2: Fireworks Display 85

What This Project Is 85
What We’re Learning with It 85
Building It 86
Step 0: Create Your New Project 86
Step 1: Creating the Background 87
Step 2: Creating Firework Sprites 89
Step 3: Into the Sky 92
Step 4: Movement Over Time 92
Step 5: Arcing Motion 93
Step 6: Reset 94
Step 7: Explosions! 95
Step 8: Bigger Explosions! 95
x ◆ Contents

Step 9: Visibility 97
Step 10: Sound Effects 98
Step 11: Transparency Using Ghost FX 99
Step 12: Duplicating More Fireworks 100

8 Beginner Project 3: Batty Flaps 102

What This Project Is 102
What We’re Learning with It 102
Building It 104
Step 0: Create Your New Project 104
Step 1: Flying Bat Character 104
Step 2: Gravity 105
Step 3: Tree Gates 106
Step 4: Collision Testing 109
Step 5: Scoring 110
Step 6: Title Screen 112
Step 7: Game Over 114

9 Beginner Project 4: Butterfly Catching 117

What This Project Is 117
What We’re Learning with It 117
Building It 119
Step 0: Create Your New Project 119
Step 1: Selecting the Background 119
Step 2: Bouncing Butterfly 119
Step 3: Get Flapping! 121
Step 4: Catching the Butterfly 121
Step 5: Tracking Your Score 122
Step 6: Adding the Beetle 123
Step 7: Bouncing Beetles 125
Step 8: Player Lives 125
Step 9: Beetle Game States 128
Step 10: Game Over Announcement 129
Step 11: Butterfly Game States 130
Step 12: Assessment 131
Step 13: Sound Effects 131

10 Beginner Check-In 134

Key Skills 134
Navigation and Interface 134
Code Tab 136
 Contents ◆ xi

Costume Tab 136

Sounds Tab 136
Objects and Backdrop 136
Adding Sprites 136
Adding Backdrops 136
Drawing Your Own 137
Object Properties 137
Coordinate System 138
Sizing 139
Direction 139
Visibility 139
Costume Changes 139
Graphical Effects 139
Sequencing139
Sequences 139
Loops/Repeating 140
Nesting 141
Triggers 141
Animation and Timing 141
Frames per Second (FPS) 141
Motion 142
Looks 143
User Input 143
Key Presses 143
Mouse Input 144
More Beginner Practice 144
Apple Catcher 144
Clicker Game 144
Birthday Card 145
Teaching Beginner Scratch 145
Navigation145
Selections and View 146
Code Order and Flow 146

11 Follow-Up: Extending the Projects 148

Commenting149
Dinosaur Dance Party 150
Fireworks Display 150
Batty Flaps 151
Butterfly Catcher 151
Intermediate and Advanced Skills 151
xii ◆ Contents

12 Troubleshooting Scratch 152

Site Issues 152
Coding Issues 154
The Wrong Object 155
General Tips 157
The Wrong Block 157
Confused Pair: Left vs. Right 157
Confused Pair: Go To vs. Glide To 158
Confused Pair: X vs. Y 159
Confused Pair: Set vs. Change 159
Confused Pair: Say/Think vs. Say/Think For 159
Confused Pair: Play Sound vs. Start Sound 159
Confused Pair: If vs. If/Else 160
Confused Pair: > vs. < 160
The Wrong Order 160
Simple Sequences Code Flow 160
Control Structures and Code Flow 161
Logic Clauses and Chains 161
Concurrency and Race Conditions 162
Other Errors 162
Layers 163
Visibility 163
Colour Selection 163
Clones vs. Originals 163
Wrong Concepts 164
Backup Plans 164
Offline Scratch 164
Pseudo-Coding165

13 The Next Step in Your Coding Journey 167

14 Final Thoughts 169

Glossary171
Index189
 Meet the Author

Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Kai

Hutchence was fortunate to be the son of a math
professor (and later research scientist) with an
interest in computer science. With his father’s help,
he taught himself BASIC coding and, as a teenager,
HTML, Visual Basic, and other languages. Living in
a province with, at that time, almost no tech com-
panies, Kai explored careers in politics, non-profits,
and restaurateuring before moving to Ontario to
work in game development.
In Ontario, he co-founded a game studio that
went on to garner over four million downloads of its
mobile apps. Living amidst a thriving game devel-
opment community, he made connections with major players in the indus-
try, helped aspiring creators publish their own games, and saw a community
transform into an industry. After almost a decade in Ontario, he moved back
to Saskatchewan to take those lessons and try to build up the industry in his
home province, a lifelong goal.
In Saskatchewan, Kai launched SaskGameDev as an organization to build,
nurture, and support game development in the province. Additionally, he
launched his own game development company, Massive Corporation Game
Studios. To support the long-term growth of game development in the prov-
ince, he took up a consultancy role to help spread coding education through
schools and non-profits.
While dedicating a portion of his time to teaching, Kai has helped estab-
lish coding support partnerships with elementary, middle and high schools,
post-secondary institutions, and provincial and national organizations. He has
helped develop coding and AI instructional material for nationwide use. Through
his multiple partnerships and public profile, he has taught workshops, given lec-
tures, provided industry mentorship and vouching, and facilitated internships
with post-secondary institutes across Canada. Following up this success and
newfound passion for coding education, Kai launched Massive Learning, a sub-
division of Massive Corporation, to focus on educational products and services.
He currently lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. He continues to make games
through Massive Corporation and provide educational services though Mas-
sive Learning. He enjoys cooking, gardening, and hiking, when he’s not
teaching, writing, or developing.
 Foreword
by Amon Millner

I have a healthy appreciation for those who take on ambitious projects. Writ-
ing a thorough guide about an evolving programming environment, geared
toward teachers who manage an ever-changing education landscape, cer-
tainly falls into that category. The result – driven, I’m sure, by the type of “hard
fun” that learning visionary Seymour Papert encouraged – is a well-written
resource that will serve many types of educators, creators, and learners.
As a member of the core team that designed and delivered the first ver-
sion of Scratch, I have made it a mission to create resources for those same
groups. The journey that led me to being a part of the Scratch story, which
I’ll share here in part, underscores why I appreciate the voice that author Kai
Hutchence brings to this book and series.
Before joining the Scratch team and Mitchel Resnick’s Lifelong Kinder-
garten Research Group (LLK) at the MIT Media Lab, I spent time mentoring
at after-school learning centres called Computer Clubhouses. (Now they’re
called “Clubhouses”, after dropping “Computer” in 2015.) The Clubhouse
Network offers after-school safe spaces where imagination meets technology
in areas where they are needed the most. These spaces adhere to a learning
model built around four central themes: learning by designing, following
your interests, building a community, and fostering respect. By the time I met
Mitchel in 2002 at a Clubhouse event for teens, I had mentored at a handful of
Clubhouses, from the neighbourhood in which I grew up to others that were
close to the universities I attended. Mitchel and I spoke at length about how
we would attempted to share our passion for programming in many Club-
houses. We lamented that the existing tools for coding were not compelling
enough to gain traction in environments where young people could have fun
across domains (putting posters of digital art on the walls, making original
soundtracks, etc.). Many of the inaugural team members knew what made
the Clubhouses special and so shaped Scratch into a tool that would thrive
in them.
Scratch’s online project-sharing feature was designed to be like a virtual
wall that all creators in the community could post to. That way, people of dif-
ferent backgrounds and interests could appreciate projects ranging from ani-
mated cartoons to interactive simulations. People who identified as artists or
game designers would sometimes post how-to projects to encourage others
to create in those domains. Communities would grow as Scratchers shared
 Foreword ◆ xv

their expertise across groups. Some Scratchers enjoyed building bridges and
making connections between communities.
With all that in mind, I see in Kai Hutchence those same characteristics
that some of the most prolific Scratchers embody: he is a community builder
who brings people together through ambitious projects. Kai credits his expe-
riences in disparate sectors for giving him the insights and perspectives that
allowed him to write this book and series in the way he did. He has been a
web/app/game developer who also taught across every tier of formal edu-
cation and professional development, from primary to higher education, and
has experience in entertainment industries.
Readers will find influences from each of those experiences in this book
as Kai links foundational educational theorists and theory, from Dewey
to constructivism, to better understand the perils and possibilities in the
technology-saturated educational system of today and tomorrow. He shows
deference to teachers, knowing that they are the experts of their own circum-
stances, and honours their expertise in his writing. The book’s structure will
support those accustomed to tinkering with topics as well as those who prefer
planning methodically. Some of the cornerstones of Scratch are affording space
to try things out, allowing for reflection, and encouraging iteration. Hutchence
eloquently writes in a way that centres these same cornerstones throughout.
Educators who use this book to build up their Scratch expertise are also
likely to develop keen abilities to nurture their students’ Scratch skills. The
diverse journeys made possible by Kai’s guidance will undoubtedly span
a range of topics and curricula, from computing and mathematics to social
studies and art. Along these journeys, teachers, especially those with no cod-
ing experience, will encounter situations where Scratch – its tools and/or eco-
system – may seem perplexing. Hutchence deftly anticipates and plans for a
variety of instances in which confusion could potentially stifle readers. He
does an excellent job of explaining possible paths forward for readers who
follow the exercises he proposes or when Scratch responds to programs in
ways they did not expect.
Of the many connections made in this book between Clubhouses and
Scratch, it warms me to see Kai Hutchence highlight how coding is more
than a path to a career or professional pursuits. He makes a compelling case
for creative expression and lifelong learning as critical outcomes of coding
instruction. Through this ambitious undertaking, Kai has shown that he is a
lifelong learner capable of inspiring others to be the same. I am confident that
the type of thinking that this thorough and thoughtful guide cultivates will
continue to serve teachers amidst the ongoing, and simultaneous, advance-
ment of computing tools like Scratch and evolution of the education system
at large.
xvi ◆ Foreword

Amon Millner is Associate Professor of Computing and Innovation and Director

of the Extending Access to STEM Empowerment (EASE) Lab at the Olin College of
Engineering, USA. A co-inventor of the Scratch programming language and former
Chairman of the Board of the Clubhouse Network, Dr Millner later served as Found-
ing Advisor of Unruly-Studios and co-invented Unruly Splats, a cross-curricular
STEM learning tool that combines coding games for kids with active play. As Cur-
riculum Director, Dr Millner teamed with Mighty Picnic and PBS Kids to launch
LYLA IN THE LOOP, an animated series showcasing a family that leverages creative
problem-solving and computational thinking skills to address a range of everyday
problems together.
 Reader’s Key

Sidebars
Object Selection – sprites vs. the stage 70
Animation Speed – frames per second 74
Shapes – points, line, and fill 88
Resets – editor vs. user experience 94
Graphics Modes – bitmaps vs. vectors 108
Variables – how computers use data 110
Flow of Code – controls and conditions 126
Traffic Control – stopping and starting code 131

Style Legend
To help keep the different concepts involved clear for readers, we have
adopted the following text stylings to denote particular things relating to
Scratch projects:

Style – meaning
Object – a sprite or the stage
●Code Category – one of the colour-coded categories of code blocks
[Code Block] or (Code Block) or <Code Block> – any one of the many
code components in Scratch (the brackets help convey the shape of the
code block)
“Variable Name” – a variable added to the project
//Script Name – a connected sequence of code blocks (a stack or script) in
a project object
 1
Why This Series?

I wrote this series to try to help address the tremendous changes happening
in education as it attempts to incorporate coding into the standard curricu-
lum. It is important that we recognize these challenges, and opportunities,
and look at the broad picture before we get caught up in the fine details of an
applied skill. While every era within memory has had educators struggle to
adapt to new technology and changes in society, the rate and scale of change
we face today is unparalleled. It is natural that educators feel overwhelmed
or lost in the turmoil. The hope is that this series can offer not only theory
and explanation of why these changes are necessary but also practical steps
to tackle the challenge. My objective is to give some view to the future, the
goals, the purpose that we are reaching for as a society, but also the ground-
ing in applied skills that you will use to build a practice around that can help
you transform your classroom into a training ground for world changers.
We may feel tremendous pressure from change, from coding to artificial
intelligence, genetic sequencing and editing, climate change, digitization,
overpopulation, robotics, renewable energy, resource shortages, democrati-
zation, and nanotechnology – the scale and power of change is staggering
on all fronts – but we may also become some of the most justifiably proud
teachers in history, leading a generation that will see some of the most radi-
cal achievements of our species: the elimination of diseases, the eradication
of poverty, the elimination of toil, even extra-planetary habitation. The chal-
lenges are big, but the opportunities are vast.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003399018-1
2 ◆ Why This Series?

The Digital Revolution

Tech is unavoidable these days. Over the past ten years, virtually every school
has converted to digital systems: classroom management systems, learn-
ing management systems, gamification, digital labs, virtual meetings, cloud
software suites, plagiarism checkers, e-learning courses, virtual workshops,
computer carts, and student log-ins for school networks. Tech has completely
infiltrated the modern classroom; it is silly to think that the skills to build,
manage, or edit all these tools would not also need to become a part of the
curriculum. We are seeing, slowly, every jurisdiction roll out new coding
requirements in their curriculum. As hard as it might seem to adapt, I think
this transition is at least a generation late. We have known computers were
the future since the space race. We have been negligent to have not taken the
steps earlier to make this process easier. But we cannot change the past, only
move forward.
A lot of John Dewey’s thoughts on education are still surprisingly relevant a
hundred years after he wrote them. We are still facing an uneasy crossing-over
from traditional to progressive learning. We have seen multiple schools of
progressive learning begin to coalesce, and looking at various jurisdictions,
we can see different approaches being adapted as standard. Inquiry-based
learning, project-based learning, game-based learning, personalized learn-
ing, differentiated learning, flipped classrooms, kinaesthetic learning, direct
instruction – it is a maze of models and buzzwords. In truth, all styles have
value, with their own strengths and weaknesses. If there were a single cor-
rect model, we would all be using it by now. We cannot assume there will
be a single winning way to transform education or incorporate coding into
the classroom. It will need to be done in a way that suits your jurisdiction’s
dictates, your school’s community, and your classroom’s needs. It is precisely
this diversity of needs and styles that makes it so hard to adapt. Teachers
cannot simply copy and paste a solution; it does have to be adapted, and that
does mean time and effort, not exactly things we have a lot of to spare.
To do this, teachers need to understand both the tools and theory of the
subject and have an understanding of the pedagogy around it. It is a lot to
understand; it is all foreign and new. It is too much to be a short or simple pro-
cess. It is also far too much to cover in one book. Step 1 is to understand the
subject and the tools to explore it. That is the goal of this book: provide a clear,
deliberate plan to master the tools so that you have the applied knowledge
to deal with the subject. Then hopefully, if this is successful, I hope to follow
up with guidance on the larger picture of pedagogy and learning theory for
the bigger how and why we need coding education and practical advice on
how to pull it off.
 Why This Series? ◆ 3

The Problems
Change is never easy. There are significant challenges to overcome, some
from the nature of the change, some from the nature of the system, and plenty
just from the situation we find ourselves in. The reason a book like this is
necessary is the lack of training for teachers to understand coding. Our edu-
cation faculties should have adapted at any point in the last 60 years to begin
this process but largely have not. Teacher training should have been working
us toward a greater understanding, slowly but surely, for generations. Then
this would not be so foreign. We would not lack experts within the education
system if teachers had been exposed to this sooner and under less-intensive
demands. It could have been a matter of exploration and inquiry instead of a
matter of compliance and demand.
We have failed to provide preparation, staged learning, and incorporation
around coding. Now teachers across the world are being faced with an imme-
diate need for adoption. Unfortunately, teaching continues to be a demand-
ing, life-consuming job. If they could not get trained before going into the
classroom, when, pray tell, are they supposed to manage to learn and adapt
to this new field of knowledge? There is no time off for it scheduled; I have
not heard of many paid sabbaticals to train in it and become comfortable
with it, or to make plans for their classroom to adopt it. I have not heard of
anything else being taken off teachers’ plates to accommodate for the new
demand. Seemingly, most jurisdictions and school boards, like economists,
have not learned to subtract. What time and support is being offered to teach-
ers to make this change? This change is far greater than anything else we have
thrown at teachers.
When we look past the aforementioned two systemic/governmental
issues, there is still plenty of hurdles. While coding is being taken up and
explored by the education community, it is still quite new. There are resources,
but they are still limited. There are lots of singular projects available to see,
study, or run, but there are few comprehensive guides and supports. Teachers
need learning pathways through this difficult new field but are largely at the
mercy of fate, simply searching for one shot and hoping they will be appro-
priate and complementary, often with little understanding of what is needed
or possible.
Thankfully, the coding educational tool Scratch is a leading method for
tackling coding, and it does have a lot of resources available, and some com-
munity built around it. So one can find lots of projects to work with. But
even with this great tool, there is little in the way of more comprehensive
supports. This book is largely about that, not just teaching projects, but teach-
ing underlying theories and professional practices through projects. Without
4 ◆ Why This Series?

understanding the theories and principles underlying code, we are really just
falling back to rote practice and repetition, having our students do but not
truly knowing or understanding.
One of the reasons it has been so difficult to incorporate coding into edu-
cation is that so few people have dealt with both spheres of knowledge: pro-
fessional experience as both educators and as tech professionals, especially
programmers. This means very few people can act as savants and guides to
translate between these two fields. Education tends to be a very extroverted
pursuit; programming a very introverted pursuit. The training to be a pro-
fessional in either field tends to be fairly significant. There is also very little
overlap in the skill sets, theories, and references. So this is not likely to resolve
easily either. Without tech people that know and engage in educational prac-
tice, and without education people that know and engage in tech (at both the
creation and maintenance level), we will have few luminaries to guide the
processes of this revolution.

The Good
We can be honest about the challenges and the problems but shouldn’t let that
stop us or trap us in negative thinking. There are challenges to overcome for
sure, but there is a lot of good that this work will achieve. The goal of coding
integration in classrooms, and of tech skill development in schools, is one
that will have tremendous positive impacts. So how do we acknowledge the
challenge, act on our realities, and maintain a growth mindset?
The fact is that we need to revolutionize education because there are rev-
olutionary new capabilities at our fingertips. The world has changed, and we
have to react to that change. The amazing technology that has transformed
our world has also provided us tools for that transformation. We have already
adopted to all kinds of classroom tech (EdTech); coding is simply the most
fundamental and the biggest step we have to take. Thankfully, tools exist to
make this transition happen, communities exist to support the change, and
individuals and organizations are out there fighting for the change and to
support it. You might feel like you are alone in this, but you are not; you just
might not have found or recognized your allies yet.
This book series is focused on one particular tool and its associated com-
munities. Scratch, or more specifically, Scratch 3, is an amazing tool that can
help us achieve this revolution, at least for a good chunk of basic education.
Available free online at http://scratch.mit.edu as either an online tool or as
an offline downloaded program, it can allow teachers and students to learn
a wonderful array of coding knowledge while exploring a wide range of
 Why This Series? ◆ 5

Figure 1.1 The http://scratch.mit.edu home page.

creative possibilities. I think Scratch is the best tool to support this change in
education, built from the ground up to provide accessible, interesting, easy,
but deep coding educational experiences.
In teaching coding, we will be providing our students with a tremendous
benefit. Students need to be exposed to coding and understand it at least at
a basic level for the world of tomorrow. While few people would question
coding as a skill today, we always need to remember that we are trying to
prepare students for the world where they will be adults, citizens, and pro-
fessionals in ten years or more. We have to be forward-looking, and coding is
a must for that future. It is already a dominant influence on our lives, and it is
only getting stronger. Code is the technological tool this generation needs to
understand to engage, control, build, or invent the world of tomorrow.
Coding is more than a career, though. Through teaching coding, we teach
our students new ways of thinking. Whether they pursue it as a calling, enjoy
it as a hobby, or just have it as part of their skill set, coding creates lifelong
learners. Code is always changing and is so deep in capability that it can
6 ◆ Why This Series?

never be fully known. To be a coder is to be a learner. There is always more

to know and try; learning to learn is fundamental to coding, and perhaps it is
the best subject to instil that drive to learn and to be effective learners.
Coding is also very importantly a creative practice. Coders create things.
Even if we did not need to teach code, the world that technology has created
demands a change in teaching. Answers are at our fingertips. The vast sea of
knowledge humanity has accumulated is available and searchable like never
before, and our teaching practice must change as a result. We cannot sim-
ply check if students can get the answer; simple recitation of knowledge is
easily replicated. While we still want informed and knowledgeable students,
and they should learn rather than always be dependent on easily searchable
answers, we need to adapt to this reality. Students, more than ever, need to be
able to produce work, to show their knowledge and understanding through
application. Coding is a great venue for them to show off their knowledge,
interests, and capabilities. We can go beyond answers and get to applications.
We know we need to move beyond traditional testing methods and teaching
to them. Coding is an amazing way to provide not just skills of its own but
also a medium for showing their work and comprehension of any subject.
We also need to step back and be realistic about what we are doing. The
capability and potential are a vast, inspiring, and daunting vista to behold. It
is easy for people to get discouraged or feel lost with such a challenge, so it is
important we remember our own context. No one person trained the world’s
greatest writers or dancers. They started by learning their ABCs or how to
walk. The next person taught them words or left and right. It is all iterative.
It is a long process. We do not need to feel like we have to master the whole
depth and breadth of the subject. We do not have to feel like we personally
can take our students anywhere. Your classroom is more a guidepost they can
aim for and be aimed at the previous guidepost from, not a comprehensive
street map of the whole world of possibilities. You will offer your students
some answers and opportunities and then point them onward to others. This
revolution will take time; the need is great, but it is not just on you, not just
on this year’s classes. It is a staged, staggered, spread-out adoption. You can
pace yourself, and you should.
Teachers have always had a tremendous opportunity to shape society and
the future. With coding, we are living up to the practice of thousands of years,
preparing our students for the world they will live in. We may be treading
new ground, but we are also doing exactly the same thing every teacher ever
has. We are going to challenge ourselves and grow personally and profes-
sionally by taking on the challenge of learning coding. In doing that, we will
provide our students the best opportunities we can for their future.
 Why This Series? ◆ 7

What This Book Series Is

This series is your all-in-one professional development training course for
coding in Scratch. My approach to this comes from having been a part of
three worlds that I think combine to provide me with some unique insight to
help with this revolution in education. I have professionally worked in tech
as a web, app, and game developer, which give me a range of deep techni-
cal knowledge of coding and other tech skills. I have worked in education
as a coding instructor for years in primary, secondary, and post-secondary
education. I have taught coding and game development to thousands of
students and educators of all ages and have worked across the nation, see-
ing all kinds of classrooms, teachers, curriculum, and standards. I have also
been an entertainer, creating both tabletop and video games to entertain the
masses.
Because of this combination of skills, I think I have a fairly unique per-
spective to tackle the challenge of helping teachers incorporate coding
into their professional toolkit. I try to combine the technical skills with the
awareness of teaching at the practical level while also making it all fun and
appealing. My hope is to give you the technical skills to be a star, the teach-
ing insights to give you a leg up on handling the challenge, and fun exam-
ples that will engage you and your students and help them be inspired to
create.
This first book in the series is written for beginners. We are starting from
nothing and teaching everything you will need to know to get started. We
will introduce all the components of Scratch, where to find them, and how
to use them. We provide a series of projects that can take someone from no
experience with coding through to producing their own simple projects and,
importantly, inspire them to create. We have a follow-up book for intermedi-
ate skills, and another for advanced, so you will be able to use these books to
grow your skills from nothing right up to the limits of Scratch’s capabilities.
Let us take a look at the different sections of this first book and what they will
cover.

The Why of Coding Education

The first three chapters of the book (“Why This Series?” “Why Coding?”
and “Why Scratch?”) are about why we need coding education and why
Scratch is the tool I recommend. In these three chapters, we will explore the
concepts surrounding coding education, look at the challenges and oppor-
tunities, and examine how Scratch in particular is a great solution to address
these issues.
8 ◆ Why This Series?

Figure 1.2 The Teacher’s Guide to Scratch book series.

Scratch Basics
This large chapter is a whirlwind tour of Scratch. It takes you through every
aspect of the system so you can understand its components, as well as the
structural whole of how Scratch works. This chapter will familiarize you with
all the different tools Scratch provides, how to navigate around it, and how to
achieve all the basic tasks with it.

Beginner Projects
This book has four projects in total to introduce Scratch and develop your
digital skills with it. These chapters provide you with a simple project suit-
able for early to mid-grades (approximately grades 1 to 4) that will provide
you with a fun project while introducing some of the basic tools and concepts.
At the end of the four beginner projects, we have a check-in chapter, where
you can review what you have learned through the beginner projects. We also
offer some suggestions for more beginner-level projects to explore on your
own if you are not ready to advance to our next book on intermediate-level
Scratch just yet.

Follow-Up
In this chapter, you’ll be provided new challenges to improve the projects
presented in this book, refining them, adding features (initially cut for sim-
plicity and brevity). There are numerous recommendations for expansions
and revisions to all five projects in the book that you can challenge yourself
 Why This Series? ◆ 9

Figure 1.3 The four beginner projects covered in this book.

or your students with. We will cover even more ideas for refinements and
expansions in our intermediate and advanced Scratch book that can prompt
a return to this simpler projects with the knowledge gained through those
other projects.

Troubleshooting
This chapter provides you some key advice on how to handle the problems
that will show up while teaching coding with Scratch. You will find some
insight on how to handle bugs in the classroom, as well as exact ideas and
approaches to take with the most common issues I have seen in teaching
thousands of kids and adults with Scratch for over six years.

Glossary
Lastly, you will find a reference for any particular terms used in the book that
might need some clarification.
 2
Why Coding?

For most educators, there probably isn’t much option on this. Coding is being
added as a curriculum requirement for schools in most jurisdictions. But we
don’t need to have an attitude of resignation about it. It is a good thing, and
hopefully through this book you’ll come to see not only the benefit to our stu-
dents for learning coding but also how it can be a fun and engaging tool you
can enjoy using in your classroom paired with other subjects.
There are seven areas that I see as being key reasons we should embrace
coding in education. Some of these are more speculative, looking to the
future; others more fundamental leaning on proven value. Some are specific
to coding and technology, while some have benefits to everyday life and com-
plement other subjects and skills.

Digital Careers
The most obvious benefit is that kids that know how to code can code. Pro-
gramming is an in-demand career, and often high-paying. By teaching more
kids to code, we can provide more kids the career path into a programming
career. However, the benefits go far beyond programming. We say digital
careers and not tech careers because of how widespread the need is and how
widespread the skills are. By engaging our students in coding, particularly
with Scratch, we aren’t just setting them up to be programmers alone but
to understand and engage with technology and digital skills broadly. They

DOI: 10.4324/9781003399018-2
Another random document with
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where her roystering boys may not in some mad Saturday afternoon
pull them down or burn their fingers. The sea and the iron road are
safer toys for such ungrown people; we are not yet ripe to be birds.
In the next place, to fifteen letters on Communities, and the
Prospects of Culture, and the destinies of the cultivated class,—what
answer? Excellent reasons have been shown us why the writers,
obviously persons of sincerity and elegance, should be dissatisfied
with the life they lead, and with their company. They have exhausted
all its benefit, and will not bear it much longer. Excellent reasons they
have shown why something better should be tried. They want a
friend to whom they can speak and from whom they may hear now
and then a reasonable word. They are willing to work, so it be with
friends. They do not entertain anything absurd or even difficult. They
do not wish to force society into hated reforms, nor to break with
society. They do not wish a township, or any large expenditure, or
incorporated association, but simply a concentration of chosen
people. By the slightest possible concert, persevered in through four
or five years, they think that a neighborhood might be formed of
friends who would provoke each other to the best activity. They
believe that this society would fill up the terrific chasm of ennui, and
would give their genius that inspiration which it seems to wait in vain.
But, “the selfishness!” One of the writers relentingly says, “What
shall my uncles and aunts do without me?” and desires distinctly to
be understood not to propose the Indian mode of giving decrepit
relatives as much of the mud of holy Ganges as they can swallow,
and more, but to begin the enterprise of concentration by
concentrating all uncles and aunts in one delightful village by
themselves!—so heedless is our correspondent of putting all the
dough into one pan, and all the leaven into another. Another
objection seems to have occurred to a subtle but ardent advocate. Is
it, he writes, a too great wilfulness and intermeddling with life,—with
life, which is better accepted than calculated? Perhaps so; but let us
not be too curiously good. The Buddhist is a practical Necessitarian;
the Yankee is not. We do a great many selfish things every day;
among them all let us do one thing of enlightened selfishness. It
were fit to forbid concert and calculation in this particular, if that were
our system, if we were up to the mark of self-denial and faith in our
general activity. But to be prudent in all the particulars of life, and in
this one thing alone religiously forbearing; prudent to secure to
ourselves an injurious society, temptations to folly and despair,
degrading examples, and enemies; and only abstinent when it is
proposed to provide ourselves with guides, examples, lovers!
We shall hardly trust ourselves to reply to arguments by which we
would too gladly be persuaded. The more discontent, the better we
like it. It is not for nothing, we assure ourselves, that our people are
busied with these projects of a better social state, and that sincere
persons of all parties are demanding somewhat vital and poetic of
our stagnant society. How fantastic and unpresentable soever the
theory has hitherto seemed, how swiftly shrinking from the
examination of practical men, let us not lose the warning of that most
significant dream. How joyfully we have felt the admonition of larger
natures which despised our aims and pursuits, conscious that a
voice out of heaven spoke to us in that scorn. But it would be unjust
not to remind our younger friends that whilst this aspiration has
always made its mark in the lives of men of thought, in vigorous
individuals it does not remain a detached object, but is satisfied
along with the satisfaction of other aims. To live solitary and
unexpressed, is painful,—painful in proportion to one’s
consciousness of ripeness and equality to the offices of friendship.
But herein we are never quite forsaken by the Divine Providence.
The loneliest man, after twenty years, discovers that he stood in a
circle of friends, who will then show like a close fraternity held by
some masonic tie. But we are impatient of the tedious introductions
of Destiny, and a little faithless, and would venture something to
accelerate them. One thing is plain, that discontent and the luxury of
tears will bring nothing to pass. Regrets and Bohemian castles and
æsthetic villages are not a very self-helping class of productions, but
are the voices of debility. Especially to one importunate
correspondent we must say that there is no chance for the æsthetic
village. Every one of the villagers has committed his several blunder;
his genius was good, his stars consenting, but he was a marplot.
And though the recuperative force in every man may be relied on
infinitely, it must be relied on before it will exert itself. As long as he
sleeps in the shade of the present error, the after-nature does not
betray its resources. Whilst he dwells in the old sin, he will pay the
old fine.
More letters we have on the subject of the position of young men,
which accord well enough with what we see and hear. There is an
American disease, a paralysis of the active faculties, which falls on
young men of this country as soon as they have finished their
college education, which strips them of all manly aims and bereaves
them of animal spirits; so that the noblest youths are in a few years
converted into pale Caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions.
They are in the state of the young Persians, when “that mighty
Yezdam prophet” addressed them and said, “Behold the signs of evil
days are come; there is now no longer any right course of action, nor
any self-devotion left among the Iranis.” As soon as they have
arrived at this term, there are no employments to satisfy them, they
are educated above the work of their times and country, and disdain
it. Many of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism of these
things, which only embitters their sensibility to the evil and widens
the feeling of hostility between them and the citizens at large. From
this cause, companies of the best-educated young men in the
Atlantic states every week take their departure for Europe; for no
business that they have in that country, but simply because they
shall so be hid from the reproachful eyes of their countrymen and
agreeably entertained for one or two years, with some lurking hope,
no doubt, that something may turn up to give them a decided
direction. It is easy to see that this is only a postponement of their
proper work, with the additional disadvantage of a two years’
vacation. Add that this class is rapidly increasing by the infatuation of
the active class, who, whilst they regard these young Athenians with
suspicion and dislike, educate their own children in the same
courses, and use all possible endeavors to secure to them the same
result.
Certainly we are not insensible to this calamity, as described by
the observers or witnessed by ourselves. It is not quite new and
peculiar; though we should not know where to find in literature any
record of so much unbalanced intellectuality, such undeniable
apprehension without talent, so much power without equal
applicability, as our young men pretend to. Yet in Theodore Mundt’s
account of Frederic Hölderlin’s “Hyperion,” we were not a little struck
with the following Jeremiad of the despair of Germany, whose tone is
still so familiar that we were somewhat mortified to find that it was
written in 1799. “Then came I to the Germans. I cannot conceive of a
people more disjoined than the Germans. Mechanics you shall see,
but no man. Is it not like some battle-field, where hands and arms
and all members lie scattered about, whilst the life-blood runs away
into the sand? Let every man mind his own, you say, and I say the
same. Only let him mind it with all his heart, and not with this cold
study, literally, hypocritically, to appear that which he passes for,—
but in good earnest, and in all love, let him be that which he is; then
there is a soul in his deed. And is he driven into a circumstance
where the spirit must not live? Let him thrust it from him with scorn,
and learn to dig and plough. There is nothing holy which is not
desecrated, which is not degraded to a mean end among this
people. It is heart-rending to see your poet, your artist, and all who
still revere genius, who love and foster the Beautiful. The Good!
They live in the world as strangers in their own house; they are like
the patient Ulysses whilst he sat in the guise of a beggar at his own
door, whilst shameless rioters shouted in the hall and asked, Who
brought the ragamuffin here? Full of love, talent and hope, spring up
the darlings of the muse among the Germans; some seven years
later, and they flit about like ghosts, cold and silent; they are like a
soil which an enemy has sown with poison, that it will not bear a
blade of grass. On earth all is imperfect! is the old proverb of the
German. Aye, but if one should say to these God-forsaken, that with
them all is imperfect only because they leave nothing pure which
they do not pollute, nothing holy which they do not defile with their
fumbling hands; that with them nothing prospers because the godlike
nature which is the root of all prosperity they do not revere; that with
them, truly, life is shallow and anxious and full of discord, because
they despise genius, which brings power and nobleness into manly
action, cheerfulness into endurance, and love and brotherhood into
towns and houses. Where a people honors genius in its artists, there
breathes like an atmosphere a universal soul, to which the shy
sensibility opens, which melts self-conceit,—all hearts become pious
and great, and it adds fire to heroes. The home of all men is with
such a people, and there will the stranger gladly abide. But where
the divine nature and the artist is crushed, the sweetness of life is
gone, and every other planet is better than the earth. Men
deteriorate, folly increases, and a gross mind with it; drunkenness
comes with a disaster; with the wantonness of the tongue and with
the anxiety for a livelihood the blessing of every year becomes a
curse, and all the gods depart.”
The steep antagonism between the money-getting and the
academic class must be freely admitted, and perhaps is the more
violent, that whilst our work is imposed by the soil and the sea, our
culture is the tradition of Europe. But we cannot share the
desperation of our contemporaries; least of all should we think a
preternatural enlargement of the intellect a calamity. A new
perception, the smallest new activity given to the perceptive power,
is a victory won to the living universe from Chaos and old Night, and
cheaply bought by any amounts of hard fare and false social
position. The balance of mind and body will redress itself fast
enough. Superficialness is the real distemper. In all the cases we
have ever seen where people were supposed to suffer from too
much wit, or, as men said, from a blade too sharp for the scabbard, it
turned out that they had not wit enough. It may easily happen that
we are grown very idle, and must go to work, and that the times must
be worse before they are better. It is very certain that speculation is
no succedaneum for life. What we would know, we must do. As if
any taste or imagination could take the place of fidelity! The old Duty
is the old God. And we may come to this by the rudest teaching. A
friend of ours went five years ago to Illinois to buy a farm for his son.
Though there were crowds of emigrants in the roads, the country
was open on both sides, and long intervals between hamlets and
houses. Now after five years he had just been to visit the young
farmer and see how he prospered, and reports that a miracle had
been wrought. From Massachusetts to Illinois the land is fenced in
and builded over, almost like New England itself, and the proofs of
thrifty cultivation abound;—a result not so much owing to the natural
increase of population, as to the hard times, which, driving men out
of cities and trade, forced them to take off their coats and go to work
on the land; which has rewarded them not only with wheat but with
habits of labor. Perhaps the adversities of our commerce have not
yet been pushed to the wholesomest degree of severity. Apathies
and total want of work, and reflection on the imaginative character of
American life, etc., etc., are like seasickness, and never will obtain
any sympathy if there is a wood-pile in the yard, or an unweeded
patch in the garden; not to mention the graver absurdity of a youth of
noble aims who can find no field for his energies, whilst the colossal
wrongs of the Indian, of the Negro, of the emigrant, remain
unmitigated, and the religious, civil and judicial forms of the country
are confessedly effete and offensive. We must refer our clients back
to themselves, believing that every man knows in his heart the cure
for the disease he so ostentatiously bewails.
As far as our correspondents have entangled their private griefs
with the cause of American Literature, we counsel them to
disengage themselves as fast as possible. In Cambridge orations
and elsewhere there is much inquiry for that great absentee
American Literature. What can have become of it? The least said is
best. A literature is no man’s private concern, but a secular and
generic result, and is the affair of a power which works by a
prodigality of life and force very dismaying to behold,—every trait of
beauty purchased by hecatombs of private tragedy. The pruning in
the wild gardens of nature is never forborne. Many of the best must
die of consumption, many of despair, and many be stupid and
insane, before the one great and fortunate life which they each
predicted can shoot up into a thrifty and beneficent existence.

VIII.

THE TRAGIC. [12]

He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the
house of Pain. As the salt sea covers more than two thirds of the
surface of the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on felicity. The
conversation of men is a mixture of regrets and apprehensions. I do
not know but the prevalent hue of things to the eye of leisure is
melancholy. In the dark hours, our existence seems to be a
defensive war, a struggle against the encroaching All, which
threatens surely to engulf us soon, and is impatient of our short
reprieve. How slender the possession that yet remains to us; how
faint the animation! how the spirit seems already to contract its
domain, retiring within narrower walls by the loss of memory, leaving
its planted fields to erasure and annihilation. Already our own
thoughts and words have an alien sound. There is a simultaneous
diminution of memory and hope. Projects that once we laughed and
leapt to execute, find us now sleepy and preparing to lie down in the
snow. And in the serene hours we have no courage to spare. We
cannot afford to let go any advantages. The riches of body or of mind
which we do not need to-day, are the reserved fund against the
calamity that may arrive to-morrow. It is usually agreed that some
nations have a more sombre temperament, and one would say that
history gave no record of any society in which despondency came so
readily to heart as we see it and feel it in ours. Melancholy cleaves to
the English mind in both hemispheres as closely as to the strings of
an Æolian harp. Men and women at thirty years, and even earlier,
have lost all spring and vivacity, and if they fail in their first
enterprises they throw up the game. But whether we and those who
are next to us are more or less vulnerable, no theory of life can have
any right which leaves out of account the values of vice, pain,
disease, poverty, insecurity, disunion, fear and death.
What are the conspicuous tragic elements in human nature? The
bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual
source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny; the belief that the
order of nature and events is controlled by a law not adapted to man,
nor man to that, but which holds on its way to the end, serving him if
his wishes chance to lie in the same course, crushing him if his
wishes lie contrary to it, and heedless whether it serves or crushes
him. This is the terrible meaning that lies at the foundation of the old
Greek tragedy, and makes the Œdipus and Antigone and Orestes
objects of such hopeless commiseration. They must perish, and
there is no over-god to stop or to mollify this hideous enginery that
grinds or thunders, and snatches them up into its terrific system. The
same idea makes the paralyzing terror with which the East Indian
mythology haunts the imagination. The same thought is the
predestination of the Turk. And universally, in uneducated and
unreflecting persons on whom too the religious sentiment exerts little
force, we discover traits of the same superstition: “If you balk water
you will be drowned the next time;” “if you count ten stars you will fall
down dead;” “if you spill the salt;” “if your fork sticks upright in the
floor;” “if you say the Lord’s prayer backwards,”—and so on, a
several penalty, nowise grounded in the nature of the thing, but on
an arbitrary will. But this terror of contravening an unascertained and
unascertainable will, cannot coexist with reflection: it disappears with
civilization, and can no more be reproduced than the fear of ghosts
after childhood. It is discriminated from the doctrine of Philosophical
Necessity herein: that the last is an Optimism, and therefore the
suffering individual finds his good consulted in the good of all, of
which he is a part. But in destiny, it is not the good of the whole or
the best will that is enacted, but only one particular will. Destiny
properly is not a will at all, but an immense whim; and this the only
ground of terror and despair in the rational mind, and of tragedy in
literature. Hence the antique tragedy, which was founded on this
faith, can never be reproduced.
After reason and faith have introduced a better public and private
tradition, the tragic element is somewhat circumscribed. There must
always remain, however, the hindrance of our private satisfaction by
the laws of the world. The law which establishes nature and the
human race, continually thwarts the will of ignorant individuals, and
this in the particulars of disease, want, insecurity and disunion.
But the essence of tragedy does not seem to me to lie in any list of
particular evils. After we have enumerated famine, fever, inaptitude,
mutilation, rack, madness and loss of friends, we have not yet
included the proper tragic element, which is Terror, and which does
not respect definite evils but indefinite; an ominous spirit which
haunts the afternoon and the night, idleness and solitude.
A low, haggard sprite sits by our side, “casting the fashion of
uncertain evils”—a sinister presentiment, a power of the imagination
to dislocate things orderly and cheerful and show them in startling
array. Hark! what sounds on the night wind, the cry of Murder in that
friendly house; see these marks of stamping feet, of hidden riot. The
whisper overheard, the detected glance, the glare of malignity,
ungrounded fears, suspicions, half-knowledge and mistakes, darken
the brow and chill the heart of men. And accordingly it is natures not
clear, not of quick and steady perceptions, but imperfect characters
from which somewhat is hidden that all others see, who suffer most
from these causes. In those persons who move the profoundest pity,
tragedy seems to consist in temperament, not in events. There are
people who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough
and they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on
poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe
their ragged and dishevelled desolation. They mis-hear and mis-
behold, they suspect and dread. They handle every nettle and ivy in
the hedge, and tread on every snake in the meadow.
“Come bad chance,
And we add to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o’er us to advance.”
Frankly, then, it is necessary to say that all sorrow dwells in a low
region. It is superficial; for the most part fantastic, or in the
appearance and not in things. Tragedy is in the eye of the observer,
and not in the heart of the sufferer. It looks like an insupportable load
under which earth moans aloud. But analyze it; it is not I, it is not
you, it is always another person who is tormented. If a man says, Lo!
I suffer—it is apparent that he suffers not, for grief is dumb. It is so
distributed as not to destroy. That which would rend you falls on
tougher textures. That which seems intolerable reproach or
bereavement, does not take from the accused or bereaved man or
woman appetite or sleep. Some men are above grief, and some
below it. Few are capable of love. In phlegmatic natures calamity is
unaffecting, in shallow natures it is rhetorical. Tragedy must be
somewhat which I can respect. A querulous habit is not tragedy. A
panic such as frequently in ancient or savage nations put a troop or
an army to flight without an enemy; a fear of ghosts; a terror of
freezing to death that seizes a man in a winter midnight on the
moors; a fright at uncertain sounds heard by a family at night in the
cellar or on the stairs,—are terrors that make the knees knock and
the teeth clatter, but are no tragedy, any more than seasickness,
which may also destroy life. It is full of illusion. As it comes, it has its
support. The most exposed classes, soldiers, sailors, paupers, are
nowise destitute of animal spirits. The spirit is true to itself, and finds
its own support in any condition, learns to live in what is called
calamity as easily as in what is called felicity; as the frailest glass-
bell will support a weight of a thousand pounds of water at the
bottom of a river or sea, if filled with the same.
A man should not commit his tranquillity to things, but should keep
as much as possible the reins in his own hands, rarely giving way to
extreme emotion of joy or grief. It is observed that the earliest works
of the art of sculpture are countenances of sublime tranquillity. The
Egyptian sphinxes, which sit to-day as they sat when the Greek
came and saw them and departed, and when the Roman came and
saw them and departed, and as they will still sit when the Turk, the
Frenchman and the Englishman, who visit them now, shall have
passed by,—“with their stony eyes fixed on the East and on the Nile,”
have countenances expressive of complacency and repose, an
expression of health, deserving their longevity, and verifying the
primeval sentence of history on the permanency of that people,
“Their strength is to sit still.” To this architectural stability of the
human form, the Greek genius added an ideal beauty, without
disturbing the seals of serenity; permitting no violence of mirth, or
wrath, or suffering. This was true to human nature. For, in life,
actions are few, opinions even few, prayers few; loves, hatreds, or
any emissions of the soul. All that life demands of us through the
greater part of the day, is an equilibrium, a readiness, open eyes and
ears, and free hands. Society asks this, and truth, and love, and the
genius of our life. There is a fire in some men which demands an
outlet in some rude action; they betray their impatience of quiet by
an irregular Catalinarian gait; by irregular, faltering, disturbed
speech, too emphatic for the occasion. They treat trifles with a tragic
air. This is not beautiful. Could they not lay a rod or two of stone wall,
and work off this superabundant irritability? When two strangers
meet in the highway, what each demands of the other is that the
aspect should show a firm mind, ready for any event of good or ill,
prepared alike to give death or to give life, as the emergency of the
next moment may require. We must walk as guests in nature; not
impassioned, but cool and disengaged. A man should try Time, and
his face should wear the expression of a just judge, who has nowise
made up his opinion, who fears nothing, and even hopes nothing,
but who puts nature and fortune on their merits: he will hear the case
out, and then decide. For all melancholy, as all passion, belongs to
the exterior life. Whilst a man is not grounded in the divine life by his
proper roots, he clings by some tendrils of affection to society—
mayhap to what is best and greatest in it, and in calm times it will not
appear that he is adrift and not moored; but let any shock take place
in society, any revolution of custom, of law, of opinion, and at once
his type of permanence is shaken. The disorder of his neighbors
appears to him universal disorder; chaos is come again. But in truth
he was already a driving wreck, before the wind arose which only
revealed to him his vagabond state. If a man is centred, men and
events appear to him a fair image or reflection of that which he
knoweth beforehand in himself. If any perversity or profligacy break
out in society, he will join with others to avert the mischief, but it will
not arouse resentment or fear, because he discerns its impassable
limits. He sees already in the ebullition of sin the simultaneous
redress.
Particular reliefs also, fit themselves to human calamities; for the
world will be in equilibrium, and hates all manner of exaggeration.
Time, the consoler, Time, the rich carrier of all changes, dries the
freshest tears by obtruding new figures, new costumes, new roads,
on our eye, new voices on our ear. As the west wind lifts up again
the heads of the wheat which were bent down and lodged in the
storm, and combs out the matted and dishevelled grass as it lay in
night-locks on the ground, so we let in time as a drying wind into the
seed-field of thoughts which are dark and wet and low bent. Time
restores to them temper and elasticity. How fast we forget the blow
that threatened to cripple us. Nature will not sit still; the faculties will
do somewhat; new hopes spring, new affections twine and the
broken is whole again.
Time consoles, but Temperament resists the impression of pain.
Nature proportions her defence to the assault. Our human being is
wonderfully plastic; if it cannot win this satisfaction here, it makes
itself amends by running out there and winning that. It is like a
stream of water, which is dammed up on one bank, overruns the
other, and flows equally at its own convenience over sand, or mud,
or marble. Most suffering is only apparent. We fancy it is torture; the
patient has his own compensations. A tender American girl doubts of
Divine Providence whilst she reads the horrors of “the middle
passage;” and they are bad enough at the mildest; but to such as
she these crucifixions do not come: they come to the obtuse and
barbarous, to whom they are not horrid, but only a little worse than
the old sufferings. They exchange a cannibal war for the stench of
the hold. They have gratifications which would be none to the
civilized girl. The market-man never damned the lady because she
had not paid her bill, but the stout Irishwoman has to take that once
a month. She however never feels weakness in her back because of
the slave-trade. This self-adapting strength is especially seen in
disease. “It is my duty,” said Sir Charles Bell, “to visit certain wards
of the hospital where there is no patient admitted but with that
complaint which most fills the imagination with the idea of
insupportable pain and certain death. Yet these wards are not the
least remarkable for the composure and cheerfulness of their
inmates. The individual who suffers has a mysterious
counterbalance to that condition, which, to us who look upon her,
appears to be attended with no alleviating circumstance.” Analogous
supplies are made to those individuals whose character leads them
to vast exertions of body and mind. Napoleon said to one of his
friends at St. Helena, “Nature seems to have calculated that I should
have great reverses to endure, for she has given me a temperament
like a block of marble. Thunder cannot move it; the shaft merely
glides along. The great events of my life have slipped over me
without making any demand on my moral or physical nature.”
 The intellect is a consoler, which delights in detaching or putting
an interval between a man and his fortune, and so converts the
sufferer into a spectator and his pain into poetry. It yields the joys of
conversation, of letters and of science. Hence also the torments of
life become tuneful tragedy, solemn and soft with music, and
garnished with rich dark pictures. But higher still than the activities of
art, the intellect in its purity and the moral sense in its purity are not
distinguished from each other, and both ravish us into a region
whereinto these passionate clouds of sorrow cannot rise.
 FOOTNOTES:

[5] The Dial, vol. i. p. 137.

[6] The Dial, vol. ii. p. 262.
[7] The Dial, vol. iii. p. 77.
[8] The Dial, vol. iii. p. 123.
[9] The Dial, vol. iii. p. 511.
[10] The Dial, vol. iv. p. 96.
[11] The Dial, vol. iv. p. 262.
[12] From the course on “Human Life,” read in Boston, 1839-40.
Published in The Dial, vol. iv. p. 515.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been

corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,

when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg. 100: ‘χόσμος’ replaced by ‘Κόσμος’.

Pg. 211: ‘ageeably entertained’ replaced by ‘agreeably entertained’.
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