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HTML5
Using Games to Learn HTML5 and JavaScript
 CONTENTS

The Essential Guide to

HTML5
Using Games to Learn HTML5 and JavaScript

Jeanine Meyer

i
 CONTENTS
The Essential Guide to HTML5: Using
Games to Learn HTML5 and JavaScript
Copyright © 2010 by Jeanine Meyer
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-3383-1
ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-3384-8

Printed and bound in the United States of America (POD)

Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence
of a trademarked name, logos, or image we use the names, logos, or images only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of
the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.
The use in this publication of trade names, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be
taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business Media LLC., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York,
NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax (201) 348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit
www.springeronline.com.
For information on translations, please e-mail rights@apress.com or visit www.apress.com.
Apress and friends of ED books may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. eBook versions and
licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Special Bulk Sales–eBook Licensing web page
at www.apress.com/info/bulksales.
The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in
the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any
loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work.

The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section.

Credits
President and Publisher: Coordinating Editor:
Paul Manning Debra Kelly
Lead Editor: Copy Editor:
Ben Renow-Clarke Sharon Terdeman
Technical Reviewer: Compositor:
Cheridan Kerr Bronkella Publishing
Editorial Board: Indexer:
Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Brenda Miller
Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell,
Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, Artist:
Michelle Lowman, Matthew Moodie, April Milne
Duncan Parkes, Jeffrey Pepper,
Frank Pohlmann, Douglas Pundick, Cover Artist;
Corné van Dooren
Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft,
Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Cover Designer:
Anna Ishchenko
 CONTENTS

To Daniel, Aviva, Anne, Esther, and Joseph, who is still in our lives, and for the newest members of
the family: Allison, Liam, and Grant.

iii
 CONTENTS

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance................................................................................................ iv
Contents..................................................................................................................... v
About the Author ...................................................................................................... x
About the Technical Reviewer ............................................................................... xi
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................... xii
Introduction ............................................................................................................ xiii
Chapter 1: The Basics ............................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Dice Game ............................................................................................. 21
Chapter 3: Bouncing Ball ........................................................................................ 67
Chapter 4: Cannonball and Slingshot ..................................................................... 97
Chapter 5: The Memory (aka Concentration) Game ............................................ 141
Chapter 6: Quiz...................................................................................................... 179
Chapter 7: Mazes ................................................................................................... 213
Chapter 8: Rock, Paper, Scissors ........................................................................ 259
Chapter 9: Hangman .............................................................................................. 287
Chapter 10: Blackjack............................................................................................ 317
Index ....................................................................................................................... 347

iv
 CONTENTS

Contents

Contents at a Glance................................................................................................ iv
Contents..................................................................................................................... v
About the Author ...................................................................................................... x
About the Technical Reviewer ............................................................................... xi
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................... xii
Introduction ............................................................................................................ xiii
Chapter 1: The Basics ............................................................................................... 1
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................................1
Critical requirements .......................................................................................................................................3
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ..........................................................................................................4
Basic HTML structure and tags ..................................................................................................................4
JavaScript programming ...........................................................................................................................10
Building the application and making it your own ..........................................................................................11
Testing and uploading the application..........................................................................................................19
Summary ........................................................................................................................................................19
Chapter 2: Dice Game ............................................................................................. 21
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................21
Critical requirements .....................................................................................................................................24
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ........................................................................................................24
Pseudo-random processing and mathematical expressions..................................................................24
Variables and assignment statements .....................................................................................................25
Programmer-defined functions .................................................................................................................26
Conditional statements: if and switch ......................................................................................................27
Drawing on the canvas ..............................................................................................................................29
Building the application and making it your own ..........................................................................................38
Throwing a single die .................................................................................................................................40
Throwing two dice ......................................................................................................................................47
The complete game of craps .....................................................................................................................55

v
 CONTENTS

Testing and uploading the application..........................................................................................................65

Summary ........................................................................................................................................................65
Chapter 3: Bouncing Ball ........................................................................................ 67
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................67
Critical requirements .....................................................................................................................................70
HTML5, CSS, JavaScript features ...............................................................................................................70
Drawing a ball, image, and gradient ..........................................................................................................70
Building the application and making it your own ..........................................................................................80
Testing and uploading the application..........................................................................................................96
Summary ........................................................................................................................................................96
Chapter 4: Cannonball and Slingshot ..................................................................... 97
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................97
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................100
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ......................................................................................................101
Arrays and programmer-defined objects ................................................................................................101
Rotations and translations for drawing...................................................................................................103
Drawing line segments.............................................................................................................................107
Mouse events for pulling on the slingshot..............................................................................................108
Changing the list of items displayed using array splice ........................................................................110
Distance between points .........................................................................................................................110
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................111
Cannonball: with cannon, angle, and speed ..........................................................................................118
Slingshot: using a mouse to set parameters of flight ............................................................................128
Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................140
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................140
Chapter 5: The Memory (aka Concentration) Game ............................................ 141
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................141
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................146
HTML5, CSS, JavaScript features .............................................................................................................146
Representing cards .................................................................................................................................146
Using Date for timing ...............................................................................................................................147
Providing a pause ....................................................................................................................................148

vi
 CONTENTS

Drawing text .............................................................................................................................................149

Drawing polygons ....................................................................................................................................151
Shuffling cards.........................................................................................................................................152
Implementing clicking on a card..............................................................................................................152
Preventing certain types of cheating .....................................................................................................153
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................154
Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................177
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................177
Chapter 6: Quiz...................................................................................................... 179
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................179
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................183
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ......................................................................................................184
Storing and retrieving information in arrays ...........................................................................................184
Creating HTML during program execution ..............................................................................................186
Changing elements by modifying CSS using JavaScript code .............................................................189
Text feedback using form and input elements .......................................................................................190
Presenting video......................................................................................................................................191
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................193
Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................210
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................210
Chapter 7: Mazes ................................................................................................... 213
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................213
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................218
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ......................................................................................................219
Representation of walls and the token ...................................................................................................219
Mouse events to build and position a wall ..............................................................................................219
Detecting the arrow keys ........................................................................................................................220
Collision detection: token and any wall ..................................................................................................222
Using local storage ..................................................................................................................................224
Encoding data for local storage ..............................................................................................................230
Radio buttons...........................................................................................................................................231

vii
 CONTENTS

Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................232

Creating the second maze application ...................................................................................................246
Testing and uploading application ..............................................................................................................257
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................257
Chapter 8: Rock, Paper, Scissors ........................................................................ 259
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................259
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................262
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ......................................................................................................263
Providing graphical buttons for the player .............................................................................................263
Generating the computer move ..............................................................................................................267
Starting off ...............................................................................................................................................274
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................275
Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................284
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................285
Chapter 9: Hangman .............................................................................................. 287
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................287
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................295
HTML5, CSS, JavaScript features .............................................................................................................295
Storing a word list as an array defined in an external script file ............................................................295
Generating and positioning HTML markup, then making the markup be buttons, and then disabling the
buttons .....................................................................................................................................................296
Creating progressive drawings on a canvas ..........................................................................................298
Maintaining the game state and determining a win or loss ....................................................................300
Checking a guess and revealing letters in the secret word by setting textContent ............................301
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................302
Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................315
Summary ......................................................................................................................................................315
Chapter 10: Blackjack............................................................................................ 317
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................317
Critical requirements ...................................................................................................................................322
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript features ......................................................................................................323
Building the application and making it your own ........................................................................................330

viii
 CONTENTS

Testing and uploading the application........................................................................................................346

Summary ......................................................................................................................................................346
Index ....................................................................................................................... 347

ix
 CONTENTS

About the Author

Jeanine Meyer is a Full Professor at Purchase College/State University of New

York. She teaches courses for mathematics/computer science and new media
majors, as well as a mathematics class for humanities students. The web site for
her academic activities is http://faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer.
Before coming to academia, she was a Research Staff Member and Manager at
IBM Research, working on robotics and manufacturing research and later as a
consultant for IBM's educational grant programs.

For Jeanine, programming is both a hobby and a vocation. Every day she plays
computer puzzles online (set game, kakuru, hashi, hitori and—often, still—tetris), and she does the
crossword puzzle and ken ken in the newspaper (by hand and in ink—it
s easier that way). She enjoys
cooking, baking, eating, gardening, travel, and a moderate amount of walking. She greatly enjoys listening
to her mother play piano and occasionally plays the flute. She is an active volunteer for progressive
causes and candidates.

x
 CONTENTS

About the Technical Reviewer

Cheridan Kerr has been involved in Web Development and Design since 1997 when she began working in
a research team for the Y2K Millennium Bug. It was here she learned about the Internet and promptly fell in
love with the medium. In her career she has been responsible for web sites in the early 00s such as Weight
Watchers Australia and Quicken.com.au, and she worked as Creative Services Manager of Yahoo!7 in
Australia on clients such as Toyota, 20th Century Fox, and Ford. Currently she is working as Head of
Digital for an Australian advertising agency.

xi
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Much appreciation to my students and colleagues at Purchase College/State University of New York for
their inspiration, stimulation, and support.
Thanks to the crew at friends of ED: Ben Renow-Clarke, who encouraged me even before I quite grasped
the idea of writing this book; Debra Kelly, who is an excellent project manager—which I needed; Cheridan
Kerr, the technical reviewer, who provided important suggestions; and the art manager and many others I
don't know by name.

And lastly, thanks to you, the reader. I am confident you can build on these ideas to make wonderful web
sites.

xii
 CONTENTS

Introduction

There
s been considerable enthusiasm about the new capabilities of HTML5, and even suggestions that
no other technologies or products are necessary to produce dynamic, engrossing, interactive web sites.
That may be overstating things, but it is true the new features are exciting. It now is possible, using just
HTML5, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript, to draw lines, arcs, circles and ovals on the screen and
specify events and event handling to produce animation and respond to user actions. You can include
video and audio on your web site with standard controls, or place the video or audio in your application
exactly when needed. You can create forms that validate the input and provide immediate feedback to
users. You can use a facility similar to cookies to store information on the client computer. And you can
use new elements, such as header and footer, to help structure your documents.
This book is based on my teaching practices and past writings. Delving into the features of a technology
or general programming concepts is best done when there is a need. Games, especially familiar and
simple ones, supply the need and thus the motivation and much of the explanation. When learning a new
programming language, my first step is to program the game of craps. If I can build a ballistics simulation
with animation, such as the slingshot game, and make a video or audio clip play when a specific condition
occurs, I am happy. If I can construct my own maze of walls, draw a stick figure for hangman, and store
information on the player's computer, I am ecstatic. And that
s what we do in this book. As you see how to
build these simple games, you
ll build your expertise as well.
This goal of this book, developed with considerable help from the friends of ED staff and the technical
reviewer, is to prepare you to produce your own web sites, including games and other dynamic
applications, with a gentle introduction to the essentials of HTML5 and programming.
At the time of writing this book, not all browsers support all the HTML5 features. The applications have
been tested using Chrome, FireFox, and Safari.

Who is this book for?

This book is for people who want to learn how HTML 5 can help build dynamic, exciting web sites. It
s for
you if you know something about programming and want to see what HTML 5 brings to the table. And it
s
also for you if you have no programming experience whatsoever. Perhaps you
re a web designer or web
site owner and you want to know how to make things happen behind the scenes. With this book, we want
to showcase the new features of HTML5 and demystify the art of programming. Programming is an art, and
creating appealing games and other applications requires real talent. However, if you can put together
words to form sentences and sentences to form paragraphs, and you have some sense of logic, you can
program.

How is this book structured?

The book consists of 10 chapters, each organized around a familiar game or similar application. There is
considerable redundancy among the chapters so you can skip around if you like, though the games do get
more complex. Each chapter starts by listing the technical features that will be covered and describing the
application. We look first at the critical requirements in a general sense: what do we need to implement the
application, independent of any specific technology. We then focus on the features of HTML5, CSS,

xiii
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
desire, but it showed that associations of pleasure had been formed
with the lap, and that she felt a vague discomfort in the absence of
these.
Just before she was a month old came an advance in hearing. So far
this sense had remained little more than a capacity for being startled
or made restless by harsh sounds. I had tested it on the twenty-third
day, and found that the baby scarcely noticed the sound of an
ordinary call bell unless it was struck within about six inches of her
ear, and suddenly and sharply at that; and on the twenty-sixth day
she showed no sign of hearing single notes of the piano, struck close
to her, from the highest to the lowest. But the next day, at the sound
of chords, strongly struck, she hushed when fretting with hunger, and
listened quietly for five minutes—her first pleasant experience
through the sense of hearing.
In the following days she would lie and take in the sound of the
chords with a look of content, staring at the same time into the face
of the person who held her, as if she associated the sound with that.
Only a few days later, when she was a month old, I thought that her
pleasure in companionship was increased if she was talked and
crooned to; and it is likely that by this time, though she had not
hitherto noticed voices, she was beginning to get them associated
with the human face—probably to the enhancement of its charm.
There were signs now, too, that touch sensations, in their principal
seat, the lips, were becoming a source of pleasure. The first smile
that I could conscientiously record occurred the day before the baby
was a month old, and it was provoked by the touch of a finger on her
lip; and a day or two later she smiled repeatedly at touches on her
lip. The day before she was a month old, also, when her lips were
brought up to the nipple, she laid hold upon it with them—the first
seizing of any sort, for her hands were still in their original
helplessness, waving vaguely about at the will of the nerve currents.
It is plain that the eyes led in the development of the psychic life. Yet
the baby was still far from real seeing. Professor Preyer believes that
there is at this stage no “accommodation” of the eyes to near and far,
although they can now be focused for right and left: that is, both
yellow spots can be brought to bear in unison on an object, but the
lenses do not yet adjust themselves to different distances. Though
the baby may have perceived direction, then, she could not have
perceived depth in space. It was only when an object chanced to be
at the distance for which her eyes were naturally adjusted that she
could have seen it clearly.
Nor is it likely that even then she saw anything as a definite outline,
but only as an undefined patch. The spot of clear vision in our eyes
is very small (a twenty-five cent piece would cover all the letters I
can take in at once on this page, if I do not let my eyes move in the
least), and the only way we ourselves see anything in definite outline
is by running our eyes swiftly over its surface and around its edges,
with long trained and unconscious skill. The baby had not yet
learned to do this. Her world of vision, much as it pleased her, was
still only patches of light and dark, with bits of glitter and motion. She
could turn her eyes and lift her head a little to make the vision
clearer; but except about her neck, eyes, and in a slight degree her
lips, she had no control of her body. She had gained much in
grouping and associating together her experiences, yet on the whole
she still lived among disjointed impressions.
In the light of such interpretations, the speculative attempts to
arrange a system of cradle education become futile. What can a
swinging ball do for a pupil whose sense apparatus is not yet in
condition to see the outline of the ball definitely? Froebel himself
could not have been expected to know much of the condition of a
baby’s sense apparatus; but modern Froebelians would be better
apostles of his almost Messianic inspiration if they were willing to
throw frankly aside his unfounded speculations and his obsolete
science. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Meanwhile, nature has provided an educational appliance almost
ideally adapted to the child’s sense condition, in the mother’s face,
hovering close above him, smiling, laughing, nodding, with all
manner of delightful changes in the high lights; in the thousand little
meaningless caressing sounds, the singing, talking, calling, that
proceed from it; the patting, cuddling, lifting, and all the ministrations
that the baby feels while gazing at it, and associates with it, till finally
they group together and round out into the idea of his mother as a
whole.
Our baby’s mother rather resented the idea of being to her baby only
a collection of detached phenomena, instead of a mamma; but the
more you think of it the more flattering it is to be thus, as it were,
dissolved into your elements and incorporated item by item into the
very foundations of your baby’s mental life. Herein is hinted much of
the philosophy of personality; and Professor Baldwin has written a
solid book, mainly to show from the development of babies and little
children that all other people are part of each of us, and each of us is
part of all other people, and so there is really no separate
personality, but we are all one spirit, if we did but know it.
 V
BEGINNINGS OF EMOTION AND PROGRESS IN
SENSE POWERS

The baby entered on her second month well content with her
fragmentary little world of glancing lights and shining surfaces,
chords and voices, disconnected touches and motions. Her smiles
began to be frequent and jolly. It was always at faces that she smiled
now: nothing else seemed half as entertaining. The way in which a
baby, in these early weeks, gazes and gazes up into one’s face, and
smiles genially at it, wiles the very heart out of one; but the baby
means little enough by it.
In this fortnight her pleasures were enlarged by introduction to a
baby carriage. The outdoor sights and sounds were of course
wasted on her at this stage of her seeing and hearing powers; but
she liked the feeling of the motion, and lay and enjoyed it with a
tranquilly beatific look. Perhaps also the fresher air and larger light
sent some dim wave of pleasant feeling through her body.
Some days earlier, when carried out in arms for her first outdoor visit,
she had found the light dazzling, and kept her eyes tight shut. In all I
have said of babies’ pleasure in light, I have meant moderate light:
the little eyes are easily hurt by a glare. There are nursemaids, and
even mothers, who will wheel a baby along the street with the sun
blazing full in his face, and who will keep a light burning all night for
their own convenience in tending him; and in later years his
schoolbooks will get the credit of having weakened his eyes. Nature
protects the little one somewhat at the outset, for at first the eyes
open by a narrow slit, which admits but scanty light: our baby was
just beginning, at a month old, to open her eyes like other folk.
Pleased though the baby was with her new powers, her life at this
period was not all of placid content. Ambition had entered in. It had
already seemed as if the mechanical lifting of the head was passing
into real effort to raise it; and day by day the intention grew clearer,
and the head was held up better. Now, too, appeared the first sign of
control over the legs. Laid on her face on the lounge, the baby did
not cry, but turned her head sidewise and freed her face, and at the
same time propped her body with her knees. This was on the first
day of the month. A few days later she was propping herself with her
knees in the bath every day.
With increase of joy and power came also the beginning of tears.
This, too, was on the first day of the month. The tears were shed
because she had waked and cried some time without being heard.
When she was at last taken up, her eyes were quite wet. As every
nurse knows, wee babies do not cry tears. When they do, it does not
mean that any higher emotional level has been gained, only that the
tear glands have begun to act. Nor have I any reason to suppose
that in this case the baby felt fear at being left alone. It was simply
that she was uncomfortable, and needed attention; and the attention
delaying, the discomfort mounted, till it provoked stronger and
stronger reflex expressions.
The first fright did occur, however, a few days later in the same
week; but it was in a much more primitive form than fear of solitude.
The baby was lying half asleep on my lap when her tin bath was
brought in and set down rather roughly, so that the handles clashed
on the sides. At this she started violently, with a cry so sharp that it
brought her grandfather anxiously in from two rooms’ distance; she
put up her lip at the same time, with the regular crying grimace
known to every nursery,—the first time she had done this,—and it
was fully five minutes before her face was tranquil again.
There had been reflex starting at sounds from the first week, and
Professor Preyer calls this an expression of fright; but to me (and
Professor Sully regards it in the same way) it seemed purely
mechanical. Our baby would even start and cry out in her sleep at a
sound without waking. But now there was clearly something more
than reflex starting. It was not yet true fear, for fear means a sense of
danger, an idea of coming harm, and the baby could have had no
such idea. But there was some element of emotion to be seen, akin
to fear; and (if we regard pleasure and pain as psychologists are
disposed to do, not as emotions in themselves, but only as a quality
of agreeableness or disagreeableness in our feelings) here was the
first dawn of any emotion. Fright, that was but a step above mere
physical shock, led the way into the emotional life.
This probably gives a true hint of the history of emotional
development in the race: for in the animal world, too, fear appears
earliest of all the emotions, and in the simplest forms of fright is
hardly to be distinguished from mere reflex action; and it is caused
oftener by sound than by anything else. When we remember the
theory that hearing is developed from the more ancient motion
sense, we are tempted to trace the origin of fright still farther back, to
the very primitive reflex sensibility to jarring movement, of which I
have spoken before.
And now the baby had come to six weeks old, and could hold up her
head perfectly for a quarter of a minute at a time, and liked greatly to
be held erect or in sitting position. Apparently all this was for the
sake of seeing better, for her joys still centred in her eyes. She had
made no advance in visual power, however, except that within a few
days she could follow with her eyes the motion of a person passing
near her.
Human faces were still the most entertaining of all objects. She
gazed at them with her utmost look of intentness, making
movements with her hands, and panting in short, audible breaths.
Nothing else had ever excited her so, except once a spot of sunlight
on her white bed.
There were signs that her experiences gathered more and more into
groups in her mind, by association. I have spoken of her earlier
association between the nursing position and being fed; now she
would check her hungry crying as soon as she felt herself lifted; and
a few days later, as soon as her mouth was washed out—a
ceremony that invariably came before nursing. At seven weeks old
she opened her mouth for the nipple on being laid in the proper
position. The food association group was enlarging; but sight did not
yet enter into it: the look of the breast did not seem to bring the
faintest suggestion of satisfied hunger, and the baby would lie and
cry with her lips an inch from it. This is natural, for she could never
really have seen it at this stage of the development of vision.
I have said that in such associations there is a germ of memory.
There is a sort of habit memory, too, that appears very early.
Impressions that have been received over and over gather a sort of
familiarity in the baby’s mind; and while he does not yet recognize
the familiar things themselves, yet he feels a change from them as
something strange—it jars somehow the even current of his feelings.
Or where impressions have been especially agreeable, they are
vaguely missed when they are absent. The consciousness of
difference between society and solitude, which our baby had showed
at the end of the first month, was habit memory of this sort.
Professor Preyer thinks that his baby showed habit memory as early
as the first week, perceiving a new food to be different from the old.
Our baby (who knew no food but mother’s milk) experienced a new
taste once or twice, when dosed for colic, and never showed the
faintest sense of novelty at it till she was six weeks old. Then she
was given a little sugar for hiccoughs, and made a face of what
seemed high disgust over it; but this particular face has been
observed more than once, and is known to be common in babies at
a new taste, even a pleasant one. It seems to be caused by a sort of
surprise affecting the face muscles.
A few days later the baby showed surprise more plainly. She lay
making cheerful little sounds, and suddenly, by some new
combination of the vocal organs, a small, high crow came out—
doubtless causing a most novel sensation in the little throat, not to
speak of the odd sound. The baby fell silent instantly, and a ludicrous
look of astonishment overspread her face. Here was not only
evidence of the germs of memory, but also the appearance of a new
emotion, that of genuine surprise; and, like fright, it is one that is
closely related to simple nerve shock. From being startled to being
surprised (as to being frightened) is not a long step.
I have just spoken of the baby as making little sounds. This was a
new accomplishment. Until a few days before, she had made no
sounds except some inarticulate fretting noises, the occasional short
outcry when startled, and the “dismal and monotonous” cry that
began with the first day. This original cry was clearly on the vowel â
(as in fair), with a nasal prefix—ngâ; but late in the sixth week it
began to be varied a little. In the fretting, too, a few syllables
appeared. The new sounds were mostly made in the open throat,
and grew out of the old ngâ by slight changes in the position of the
vocal organs—ng, and hng, and hng-â; but now and then there was
a short wă, gă, or hă, or even a lip sound, as m-bă.
It has been said that the broad Italian ä is of all sounds the easiest,
the one naturally made from an open throat: but the records show
both German and American babies beginning with the flat â or
shorter ă. Our baby scarcely used any other vowel sound for weeks
yet.
Little sounds of content, too, began in the sixth week—mainly
inarticulate grunts and cooing murmurs; but in the course of the
seventh week, besides the sudden crow, there were a few tiny
shouts,—a-a-ha,—a gurgle, and some hard g sounds, ga, and g-g-g,
which passed in the eighth week into a roughened gh, a sort of
scraping, gargling sound, not in the English language.
Our baby had a leaning to throat sounds; but other babies begin with
the lip sounds, and some, it is said, with the trilling l and r. It seems
to be only chance what position of the vocal organs is first used; but
after once beginning to articulate, the baby seems to pass from
sound to sound by slight changes (probably made accidentally in
using the old sounds), and so goes through the list with some
regularity.
This practice in sounds may be at first quite without will, a mere
overflow of energy into the vocal organs; but it is highly important
none the less, for any creature that is to use human speech must get
the speaking muscles into most delicate training. Think what fine and
exact difference in muscular contractions we must make to be able
to say “ball,” and be sure that it will not come out “pall”!
For a week or two now the baby made a good deal of progress in
control of her body. She strove valiantly every day to keep her head
erect, and made some little advance. In the bath she began to push
with her feet against the foot of the tub, so hard that her mother
could not keep the little head from bumping on the other end. She
pulled downward with her arms when her mother held them up in
wiping her. These pushing and pulling movements may have been
made for the pleasure of the feeling, or they may have been
involuntary. Perhaps they were accidental movements, passing
gradually into voluntary ones. In either case, as they developed, the
old irregular movements of legs and arms passed away, as those of
the head and face had done before.
One new bit of muscular control was undoubtedly voluntary—a trick
of putting out and drawing back the tip of her tongue between her
pursed lips. And this was something more than just one new
voluntary movement. The important thing was that she was using the
movement to bring together the evidence of two different senses into
one perception.
When something touches against our fingers, we have one sort of
feeling in them, and quite another when we pass them over the thing
and “feel of it;” and this other, clearer feeling is really a compound
one, made up of the touch sensation in the skin and the muscle
sensation in the moving fingers. It is called “active touch,” and it is a
wonderful key to the world around us—so wonderful that with this
alone it proved possible to educate Laura Bridgman and Helen
Keller. This active touch the baby had now developed in tongue and
lips; not yet in the fingers.
The passive sensation of light had already been blended with muscle
sensation in something the same way, by the voluntary movement of
turning and focusing the eyes; but that complete seeing which we
might call “active sight” is a more complex power than active feeling,
and there were other associations yet to be made before it could be
fully built up. And I hope it will not spoil the interest of the story of the
baby’s sense development if I say here that the plot is going to turn
mainly on these two combinations, muscle sense with sight and
muscle sense with touch; and then recombination of these two with
each other—all welded together by voluntary movements, growing
out of involuntary ones.
All this time the baby had had a daily source of placid pleasure in
listening to chords on the piano—no longer heavy staccato chords,
but flowing ones, in the middle octaves. The baby of theory cares for
nothing but eating and sleeping; but our baby, even after she was
already fretting with hunger, would forget all about it for ten minutes,
if one would take her to the piano. Hunger, after it grew really strong,
was a sensation that swept all before it; but on the whole, food was a
matter of small interest compared with the world of light and touch
and sound.
As for sleep, the baby slept, from the first, in pretty long periods,—six
and seven hours was not uncommon,—and was wide awake
between sleeps. At such times she would lie by the half hour, looking
peacefully about her, or gazing into our faces with smiles. When we
nodded, laughed, and talked to her, her smiles seemed like friendly
responses; but this could have meant nothing, except that with our
demonstrations those little constellations of high lights and glitters,
our faces, bobbed and twinkled in a more amusing manner than
ever.
At eight weeks old came the final stage in mastery of the mechanism
of vision—the power of accommodation, or adjusting the lenses for
different distances. It may have been present even earlier: it is a
hard thing for the observer to know. But the indications are that it
really did happen when I thought, the day the baby was eight weeks
old. She was lying on her mother’s knees, fixing an unusually serious
and attentive gaze on my face, and would not take her eyes away;
indeed, as her mother turned her in undressing, she screwed her
head around comically to keep her eyes fixed. At last, after some
fifteen minutes, she turned her head clear over, and gazed as
earnestly at her mother’s face. To see what she would do, her
mother turned her again toward me, and once more she surveyed
me for a time, and again turned her head and looked directly at her
mother.
What was in the little mind? Was she beginning to discriminate and
compare, for the first time setting apart as two separate things the
two faces that had bent over her oftenest? Or was she simply using,
on the most convenient object, a new power of adjusting her eyes,
which filled her with serious interest by the new clearness it gave to
what she saw? At all events, she would not have looked from one to
the other with such long and attentive regard if she had not been
able to focus both faces, at their different distances; so that I felt sure
the power of accommodation was really there.
But there was more in the incident than just the advance in vision.
Hitherto when the baby had turned her head to look, it had been only
at something that she had already a glimpse of, off at the edge of the
field of vision. Now she turned to look for something quite out of
sight,—something, therefore, that must have been present as an
idea in the little mind, or she could not have looked for it. And in view
of what I have said of the mother’s face as the great educational
appliance in the early months, it is worth noticing that it was this
which gave the baby her first idea, so far as I could detect.
We come a step nearer, too, to true memory, when the baby can
keep thus, even for a few minutes, the idea of something formerly
seen. It was still mainly habit memory, however. She looked for an
accustomed sight in an accustomed place, bringing it to the point of
clear vision by an accustomed movement of the neck muscles.
There was no evidence till considerably later that she was capable of
remembering a single, special experience.
The next day she was singularly bright and sunny, smiling all day at
every one. She stopped in the middle of nursing to throw her head
back and gaze at the bow at her mother’s neck, and would not go on
with the comparatively uninteresting business of food till the bow was
put out of sight. That night she slept eight hours at a stretch, longer
than she had ever done. Was the little brain, perhaps, wearied with
the new rush of impressions, which came with the new power of
focusing?
The day after she would lie a while unusually silent and sober,
looking about her and moving her hands a little; then she would fret
to be lifted and held against one’s shoulder, where she could hold
her head up and look about. She was able now to hold it up a long
time by resting it for a few seconds every half minute or so, against
my cheek, which I held close to give her the chance. But to-day she
was not satisfied with having her head erect: she persistently
straightened her back up against the arm that supported her—a new
set of muscles thus coming under control of her will. As often as I
pressed her down against my shoulder, she would fret, and
straighten up again and set to work diligently looking about her.
After this her progress in holding up her head was suddenly rapid,
and by the end of the month, four days later, she could balance it for
many minutes, with a little wobbling. This uncertainty soon
disappeared, and the erect position of the head was accomplished
for life.
During these last days of the month the baby was possessed by the
most insatiate impulse to be up where she could see. It was hard to
think that her fretting and even wailing when forced to lie down could
mean only a formless discontent, and not a clear idea of what she
wanted. Still, it is not uncommon, when an instinct is thwarted, to feel
a dim distress that makes us perfectly wretched without knowing
why. As soon as she was held erect, or propped up sitting amid
cushions, she was content; but the first time that she was allowed to
be up thus most of the day, she slept afterward nine unbroken hours,
recuperating, probably, quite as much from the looking and the
taking in that the little brain and eyes had been doing as from any
muscular fatigue there may have been in the position.
Such is the “mere life of vegetation” the baby lived during the first
two months. No grown person ever experiences such an expansion
of life, such a progress from power to power in that length of time.
Nor was our little girl’s development anything unusual for a healthy,
well-conditioned child, so far as other records give material for
comparison. Preyer’s boy was later than she in getting his head
balanced, but he arrived at full accommodation (and that is the most
important work of the first two months) at almost exactly the same
age as she; and so did Mrs. Hall’s boy. I do not know of any other
records that make a clear statement on this point.
 VI
PROGRESS TOWARD GRASPING.

The baby’s development, as I have said, consisted now mainly in

forming association groups in her mind in two series, which we might
call a sight-motor series and a touch-motor series. There had been a
leap forward in the sight-motor series when “accommodation” was
learned. Now the touch-motor series came to the front, and step by
step led on to the great accomplishment of grasping.
First, when we laid the baby’s face up against ours, her little tongue
was put out to lick the cheek that she felt, warm and smooth, against
her lips. This was a more advanced use of active feeling than the
mere passing of her tongue over her own lips, for that must have
been done accidentally many times before she began to do it on
purpose; and the association between the movement and the feeling
had been helped by the double sensation—one feeling in the lips
and another in the tongue every time they touched.
This doubling of sensation, which occurs every time one part of the
body touches another part, often seemed to wake special attention in
the baby, and thus help on a development. Later, it had a great part
to play in teaching her the boundaries of her own body, and the
difference between the Me and the Not-me. Even now, she must
have been somewhat aware of a different feeling when she passed
her tongue over her own sensitive lips, and when she passed it over
the unresponsive cheek of some one else.
So far, the tongue, not the hand, was her organ of touch. But now
the fingers were showing the first faint sign of their future powers—
nothing more than a little special sensibility, such as the lips had
shown in the first month: we would see the baby holding her finger
tips together prettily (when by chance they had collided), as if there
were a feeling there that interested her. Here again there was double
sensation.
In these same early days of the third month there was beginning
another development that was to end by making the hand the
successful rival of lips and tongue for purposes of grasping and
feeling. The baby was trying to get her fists to her mouth.
The movement of the hands toward the head is a common one in the
first weeks, by reason of prenatal habit, and thus it had often
happened that the little fists, or as much of them as could be
accommodated, had blundered into the mouth; and interesting
sensations (double sensations again, in fists and mouth) had been
experienced. The baby had at the same time felt in her arms the
movement that always went with these interesting sensations, and
now she was trying to repeat it. Within a week she had mastered it,
and could mumble and suck her fists at will—a great addition,
naturally, to the comfort of life.
Meanwhile the reflex clasping, which had always taken place when
an object was laid in the baby’s palm, was growing firmer and longer,
and more like conscious holding; and I noticed that the thumb was
now “opposed” in clasping—that is, shut down opposite the fingers,
an important element in the skill of human grasping. And now, when
the fingers came in contact with convenient things—folds of the
towel, for instance—the hands would clasp them mechanically, just
as the lips, since the first month, had laid hold on a breast or cheek
that touched them.
This had an important result. The little hand would presently go to
the mouth, still mechanically clasping the fold of towel or dress,
which in consequence was sucked and mumbled, too. In this way
the baby got sundry novel sensations, and a chain of associations
began to form: she was to learn thus, by and by, that when she felt
touch sensations in her fingers, she could get livelier ones in her
mouth (and also the pleasant muscular feeling of sucking), by the
movements of clasping, and of lifting her arm. But she had not yet
learned it: objects (except her own hands) were still carried to her
mouth only by accident.
By the twelfth week the baby had found that her thumb was better for
sucking purposes than chance segments of fist, and could turn her
hand and get the convenient little projection neatly into her mouth.
She got hold of it more by diving her head down to it than by lifting
the hand to the mouth. Seizing with the mouth, by motions of the
head, like a dog, instead of using the hand to wait on the mouth,
seemed still her natural way.
But the hands were gaining. In this same twelfth week I saw the little
finger tips go fumbling and feeling over our hands and dresses.
They, too, had learned active touch, as the tongue had learned it
more than a month before.
Just at this time we began to bring the baby to the table—nominally
so that no one need stay away from meals to look after her; really for
the sake of her jovial company at our sober grown-up board, where
she would sit, propped amid cushions in her high chair, gazing and
smiling sociably at our faces, crowing and flourishing her arms in joy
at the lights and the rattle of dishes, forming the sole topic of
conversation to an extent that her bachelor uncle had his private and
lonely opinion about. The high chair was one of those that have a
wooden tray fastened across the front, and here were placed several
handy objects—rattle, and ring, and string of spools. This was by the
wisdom of grandma, who saw the approach of the power of
grasping. One may often see the little hands fluttering empty, the
little brain restless, craving its natural development (for grasping is
much more a matter of brain development, through the forming of
associations, than of hand development), when there is no wise
grandma to see that rattle and ring and spools lie “handy by” a little
before the baby is ready to use them. To wait till he knows how to
grasp before giving him things to practice on is like keeping a boy
out of the water till he knows how to swim. Such impeding of the
natural activities is responsible for a good deal of the fretting of
babies.
It was not three days till I saw the little hands go fumbling across the
tray, seeking the objects they had become used to finding there; and
when they touched rattle or spool, they laid hold on it. Nor was this
the old mechanical clasping: it was voluntary action, and as clumsy
as new voluntary action is apt to be, compared to involuntary. The
baby did not know how to turn her hand and take up a thing neatly: if
she touched it in such fashion that she could shut down her fingers
on it somehow or anyhow, she would manage to lift it—stuck
between two fingers from behind, once, when the back of her hand
had touched it; if not, she would go on fumbling till she did. In two or
three days more she was laying hold on things and carrying them to
her mouth with plain intention.
Here was a sort of grasping, but it was grasping by feeling only. The
baby had yet no idea of an object, which she could locate with the
eye and then lay hold on with the hand. She had simply completed
the chain of association I spoke of above: she had learned, that is,
that after certain groping movements, feelings of touch appeared in
her hands; and that then, after movements of clasping and lifting,
these feelings reappeared in more lively and pleasing form in her
mouth. She never looked at the objects she touched. There is no
reason to think they could have been to her anything more than
sensations in her own hands and mouth. The sight-motor and touch-
motor series had not yet coalesced. But in these last days of the
third month both had come to the point where they were ready to
begin the fusing process, and give the baby her world of outer
objects.
Before I go back to relate what had been going on meanwhile in the
sight-motor series, I must stop to speak of some other developments
of the month.
Memory, for one thing, had plainly advanced. By the tenth week the
baby had shown some doubtful signs of knowing one face from
another; and in the twelfth she plainly recognized her grandfather
with a smile and joyous cry, as he came in. Her first recognition,
therefore (it is worth while to notice), was not of the mother, the
source of supplies, but of the face that had offered most
entertainment to the dawning mental powers, not only because of
the white beard, the spectacles, and the shining bald brow, but
because of the boyish abandon with which grandpa played with her,
ducking his face down to hers.
A few days later she showed that she knew at least the feeling of her
mother’s arms. For some weeks no one else had put her to sleep;
and now when sleepy she fretted in other arms, but nestled down
contentedly and went to sleep as soon as she felt herself in her
mother’s. The association of that especial feeling had become
necessary to sleep.
The instinctive language of sign and sound had developed a good
deal. From the first day of the month, the baby’s joy in sights began
to be expressed more exuberantly, with flying arms and legs, with
panting, murmuring, and babbling, smiles and even small chuckles,
and sometimes little shouts and crows. A new look of grief, too, the
parallelogram shaped mouth that all babies make in crying,
appeared.
In the tenth week she began to turn her head aside in refusal or
dislike—a gesture that one may see far down in the animal kingdom.
A dog, for instance, uses it very expressively. It comes plainly from
the simple effort to turn away from what is unpleasant, and develops
later to our shake of the head for “No;” and when we notice how
early the development of control over head and neck is, how much in
advance of any use of the hands, we see that it is natural for this to
be the oldest of all gestures.
In the last days of the month came two notable evidences of growing
will. One was the baby’s persistent effort to get the tip of her rattle (it
was set on a slender ivory shaft) into her mouth. Sometimes it went
in by chance; sometimes it hit her lip, and in that case she would
stretch her mouth to take it in, moving her head rather than the rattle.
But if it brought up against her cheek, too far away to be captured by
such efforts, after trying a little, she would lower the rattle, and make
a fresh start for better luck.
This may seem highly unintelligent action; yet after all, as Professor
Morgan says, it is by the method of “trial and error” that most of our
acts of skill (and perhaps all such acts of the lower animals) are
learned. In trial after trial the baby associated the muscular feeling of
the successful movement with the feeling of the rattle tip in her
mouth, and repeated these movements more and more correctly,
dropping the unsuccessful ones. In just this way the sharpshooter,
through repeated trials and misses, learns to deflect his rifle barrel
this way and that with an infinite fineness of muscular contractions,
which he could never get by reasoning on it.
The other effort of will was in sitting up. During the whole month the
baby had insisted on a sitting position, and had wailed as vigorously
over being left flat on her back as over being left hungry. She had
soon tried to take the matter into her own hands, and made many
efforts to lift herself, sometimes by pulling on our fingers when we
had laid them in her hands, sometimes by sheer strain of the
abdominal muscles. She never succeeded in raising more than her
head and shoulders till the last week of the month: then she did once
lift herself, and in the following days tried with the utmost zeal to
repeat the success. She would strive and strain, with a grave and
earnest face, her whole baby soul evidently centred on the
achievement. She would tug at our fingers till her little face was
crimson; she would lift her head and shoulders and strain to rise
higher, fall back and try it again, till she was tired out. The day she
was three months old, she tried twenty-five times, with scarcely a
pause, and even then, though she was beginning to fret pitifully with
disappointment, she did not stop of her own accord.
Unless she began with a somewhat high reclining position, or her
feet or hips were held, her little legs would fly up, and she could not
get the leverage to lift her body. For that matter, even with us the
legs are lighter than the trunk, and few women can overcome the
difference, and lift themselves by sheer strength of the abdominal
muscles, without having the feet held: and a baby’s legs are so much
lighter than ours that it must be for several years a sheer
impossibility for him to do it.
However, in the few cases when the baby did manage, by some
advantage of position, or by holding to our fingers, to lift herself, she
could not balance in the least, and toppled over at once. What with
this discouragement, and restraint from her elders, who thought her
back by no means strong enough yet for sitting alone, she soon after
gave up the effort to raise herself, and waited till she was older.
It was in this same eventful thirteenth week that the baby first looked
about, searching for something that was out of sight. A lively young
girl with bright color and a charming pair of dangling eye-glasses
was visiting us, and stood by, laughing and prattling to the baby
while she was bathed. The little one, greatly interested, turned her
head, smiling and crowing, to watch Miss Charmian’s movements,
and to look for her when she was out of sight. In this, as in the
definite efforts to feel the rattle tip in her mouth, and to renew the
sensations of sitting up, we see action guided by an idea of that
which is absent, that is by imagination, to a certain extent at least;
though it is probable that there was still as much of the mere working
of association as of definite ideas. The memory that the baby
showed when she looked about, searching for an expected sight,
instead of simply turning to an accustomed place, is clearly more
than mere habit memory. Yet it was still not true memory: it was not
an idea coming back to the mind after an interval, but only a sort of
after-shine of the thing, held in the mind for a few moments after the
thing itself had disappeared.
And now to come back to the sight-motor series: Did the baby still
see objects only as blurs of light and shade? She had the full
mechanism of her eyes in working order as soon as accommodation
was acquired; but it is certain that it takes much practice to learn to
use that mechanism. It is an old story that people born blind,
receiving their sight by surgical operations, have to learn to see.
Professor Preyer quotes from Dr. Home the case of a twelve year old
boy who, nearly a month after the operation, could not tell whether a
square card had corners or not by looking at it; and of another seven
year old boy who had to learn to recognize triangles and squares
(which he knew well by touch) by running his eye along the edges
and counting the corners. It must have taken immense practice for
us all to learn to flash the eye so quickly over and about an object
that we seem to take in its shape with one look. This was the task
that lay before the baby now.
How long it took we can only guess. Some observers have taken it
for granted that the first recognition of a face showed clear seeing
had arrived. But the group of lights and shades is so different in each
face that a baby might well learn to know them apart without distinct
outlines. We have all seen French paintings in which the eyes, the
smile, some high lights on cheek, chin, and nose, and a cloudy
suggestion of hair and beard, are all that emerge from the dark
canvas, and yet we may see easily for whom the portrait is meant.
Our baby had recognized no face yet except her grandfather’s,
where the beard, spectacles, and shining bald brow made
recognition easy without any outline.
But in another direction we get a plainer hint. I have spoken above of
the joyous excitement roused in the baby by interesting sights (not
only faces now, but also sundry bright things, and dangling, moving
things) early in the month. By the middle of the month her smiles
were fewer, and she looked about her earnestly and soberly; and in
the last week I noted, without understanding, the expression of
surprise that had come into her face as she gazed this way and that.
The wide, surprised eyes must have meant that something new was
before them. Were things perhaps beginning to separate themselves
off to the baby’s sight in definitely bounded spaces?
I must go on into the record of the next month for more light on this
question: for the wonder grew day by day, and for weeks the baby
was looking about her silently, studying her world. She would inspect
the familiar room carefully for many minutes, looking fixedly at object
after object till the whole field of vision was reviewed, then she would
turn her head eagerly and examine another section; and when she
had seen all she could from one place, she would fret till she was
carried to another, and there begin anew her inspection of the room
in its changed aspect—always with the look of surprise and
eagerness, eyes wide and brows raised.
We can only guess what was going on in the baby mind all this time;
but I cannot resist the thought that I was looking on at that very
process which must have taken place somewhere about this time—
the learning to see things clear and separate, by running the eyes
over their surfaces and about their edges.
With this, sight and muscle sense alone, touch and muscle sense
alone, had done all they could to reveal the world to the baby, and