A hundred years ago, there were independent groups within American Freemasonry that offered the thinking Mason avenues for education, such as their periodicals, books, correspondence courses, etc. Groups unaffiliated with grand lodges arose because there was some demand for the instruction, but the grand lodges, for the most part, were not supplying it.
The Philalethes Society and the Masonic Service Association are the only survivors from that era, but there were others, such as the National Masonic Research Society, whose leadership was comprised of scholars, authors, and other names we recognize to this day. It published The Builder, one of the best monthly magazines from that time, at least for readers who like gleaning the meaning of Masonry through instructive and advocacy journalism.
I hereby brazenly lift the following editorial from its January 1930 issue which, most assuredly, was penned before the Black Tuesday on Wall Street that unleashed the Great Depression, which negated the membership boom experienced across the country since World War I—and shuttered the National Masonic Research Society the following year. I point out this bit of history because the writer of this essay clearly is discussing a Freemasonry that has membership and resources in abundance.
(If you are under age fifty, use your favorite search engine to decode the words gramophone, telegraph, et al.)
As you’ll see, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That said, the following is inspiring and informative. If you labor in the quarries, frustrated by the solitude of trying to learn what this fraternity professes, the reasons for that disconnect are explained. More importantly, the remedy is prescribed.
One conspicuous prophecy is the mention of research lodges; there were no research lodges in the United States at the time this was published. (See tomorrow’s edition of The Magpie Mason.)
I found this by happenstance while preparing for what will be my first research paper for Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 at some future time. And I took the liberty of including advertisements from the pages of this journal. Enjoy.
The Masonic Education Movement
If we look back over the course of events in the American Masonic world for the last fifteen years, or even the last ten years, one of the most outstanding features will appear to be the emergence of Masonic Education as an object of official concern and policy. Scarcely a volume of Grand Lodge Proceedings now comes out but has something to report on the subject. The individual Mason, as a rule, does not know much of what is being done outside his own jurisdiction, if indeed he knows anything very much of what is being done within it. On the other hand, those who are actively interested, whether officially or otherwise, are apt to miss the forest because they are so intent upon the trees in their own vicinity.
There has been a great variety in the methods adopted, and still greater differences in regard to estimate of results. It has been remarked, by several different observers, that there is a curious relation between the character of the reports and the nature of the machinery adopted. Where there are paid officials charged with educational work in the various lodges, one is apt to find most glowing reports of the efficacy of the work and the value of the results. Where it is undertaken by unpaid voluntary workers, the reports are often pessimistic in the extreme.
This is really not curious at all, it is most natural and human, aside from the fact that there may be objective reasons for the difference. The paid worker is able to travel, and to come in contact with the brethren he is working for. And because it is his avocation, his methods receive some kind of standardization and the key is pitched fairly low. Besides, he sees the lodges at their best. As a rule, there is generally an extra large crowd to receive the official visitor—he is listened to with attention, sees only the enthusiasm he may have aroused, and goes on to repeat the process elsewhere.
The voluntary worker is in quite a different position and so sees things differently. As a rule, even if he has Grand Lodge recognition and official standing, he is unable to travel and has to do most of his work by correspondence. He has the far harder task of trying to get people to help themselves. The efforts generally flicker fitfully for awhile and then die suddenly like a burnt out candle. Then too, the voluntary worker is usually something of a student himself, and he must be an enthusiast or he would never undertake the task, and as a result he is inclined to forget how much elementary, kindergarten work has to be done before any advanced study can be initiated.
Taking everything into consideration, there is a tendency now observable, here and there, to stop and take stock; to ask what it is really all about, and why and how? In short, the official Masonic Education Programs have run up against human nature or rather just plain nature. They have put in some kind of water supply, they have caught the horse and haltered him and have led him to the trough and he won't drink. The danger is that in reaction the whole effort may be abandoned. After all, if your horse won’t drink today, you can fairly safely count on his drinking tomorrow, so that there is no sense in destroying the watering trough.
This is why an attempt to survey the whole subject and get it in some kind of perspective is necessary. The causes for the recent interest in “Education” are by no means clear. That Masonry was instructive has always been taken for granted, but it was also taken for granted that all that was necessary was embodied in the rituals, and that attendance at the regular work of the lodge was sufficient for a complete Masonic education. American Grand Lodges have, since 1850 or thereabouts, taken great interest in ritual minutiae, much of it of trifling importance, and have expended more ingenuity and effort in aiming at a rigid and somewhat monotonous uniformity than has been devoted to maintaining its spirit, and in seeing that it was either understandable or understood. And there are still many jurisdictions where “Education” merely means teaching the ritual so efficiently that the pupils may recite it with the faultless accuracy of a gramophone.
Now we do not wish to be understood as saying this care is misplaced, though those who know anything of the evolution of the ritual know that it has been materially changed in every jurisdiction from what it was seventy-five years ago, and that the rituals of two hundred years ago would be hardly recognizable to the average American Mason. And for every one who knows this, there are a dozen who know that the rituals of different jurisdictions, and still more of different countries, vary almost as widely at the present day. And to all who are aware of these facts, the pains taken to preserve the ipsissima verba of one particular recension must appear in a different light to that in which the matter is seen generally by Grand Lecturers and Ritual Committees. Nevertheless at the worst, this preoccupation with the preservation of the exact formula is only an exaggeration of a necessary requirement, a one-sided development, in which the letter has become everything and the spirit left in the background. For the word is nothing without its meaning, and though the ritual is the text, the starting point of true Masonic education, it is its significance that is the essential thing. The form is not an end in itself, a magical incantation working ex opere operato, but ultimately only a means to an end that is other than itself.
A friend who served in the old Russian army as a surgeon (and being a Pole he was keenly critical of everything Russian) once told the present writer how, after the Russo-Japanese War, the army authorities decided, among other things, that the Russian soldier needed education. Doubtless he did, but the method adopted was rather crude. Apparently something like this happened: Orders were sent to Commanding Officers to establish regimental schools. The Commanding Officers “passed the buck” to their company officers. These again told their non-commissioned officers to get the men together and teach them. The writer’s informant attended one of the classes out of curiosity. The instructor had been assigned, as his subject, “The Telegraph.” The gist of his lecture was this: “I am to teach you all about the telegraph. Do you know what the telegraph is? No? Well I will tell you. The telegraph is the telegraph. This is what you have to learn.” And he made them recite in unison: “The telegraph is the telegraph.” And that was that. It may sound incredible, but it is probably perfectly true, for the Russian soldier was armed and equipped and munitioned in very much the same way.
Now far be it from us to suggest that anything like this has ever occurred in official attempts to educate the American Mason, and yet, one has a sneaking idea that there has been a remote resemblance in the methods adopted, to this extent at least, that the idea that education was needed outran knowledge of what to teach and how to teach it. In other words, the thing went off at half cock, and no definite aim having been taken, nothing in particular was hit. Needless to say there are some shining exceptions, still the indictment holds good, we fear, in too many cases.
The primary necessity in an educational movement is the selection and training of teachers. In theory, the Master is the instructor of his lodge; in practice he is, as a rule, utterly untrained in everything but the bare letter of the ritual; nor has he any chance to improve himself by experience, because by the time he has begun to learn something (if he has it in him) his term ends, and another untrained man is put in his place. After all, this is not so very different from the Russian method!
Now the lodge is the traditional organ by which Masonry functions, and Masons should be educated in the lodge. We have the machinery, but it has so long been disused, and is so rusty, that instead of putting it in operation again, we have been trying all kinds of makeshift substitutes, which if they work, would probably lead to embarrassing conflicts and overlappings of function and authority. Where to start is a most complex and difficult problem, far more so than has generally been realized.
As a contribution to its solution we will make a few suggestions. The first question is to decide quite definitely what is the proper scope of Masonic education, instruction, teaching. The second how to ensure trained teachers. That done, it is probable that the only difficulties left will prove to be really matters of detail only.
The first step is to distinguish clearly between teaching and research. This has not always been done, obvious as it may appear. Every Grand Lodge ought to foster research as much as possible, but it should not undertake it. Committees on Education should not be Research Committees, even if composed of Masonic students. The research worker is often a very poor teacher. His function is to provide the teacher with such information as he needs. Every Grand Lodge should have an adequate working library, with a trained librarian in charge. There are few Grand Lodges which could not afford this. There is no need for the librarian to be a man and a Mason. A trained woman could do the work quite competently; for the purpose of such a library is to make it possible for such brethren who are interested to get access to the books they need. But we doubt if the establishment of a library is the first step. There are much more elementary things to be done first.
Having set research aside as a thing by itself, a matter for the individual mainly, but in which the individual may be profitably assisted; let us turn to our first problem. What is it that should be taught, not to some, but to every Mason? What is it that corresponds to a common school training, that is elementary, well established, and that should be universally known? The ritual here gives us a plain answer. It is light, illumination. But perhaps this is only another case of “the telegraph is the telegraph,” somewhat disguised. Yet there is a recognized metaphorical meaning assigned to light and illumination, even a common everyday one, quite aside from any special Masonic symbolism. And while it is true that many have looked for (and some have found) a mystical illumination in the initiation, yet it is obvious that this is only for a select few. There is a plain meaning, within the reach of every initiate. It is simple and obvious and necessary, and like so many simple and obvious things is frequently overlooked, and like many necessary ones is often forgotten or not realized.
What happens is this: The candidate is introduced into a new circle, a fraternity, as an integral part of it, and to him is shown in form and symbol his social relationships and obligations in the light (it is difficult to avoid the term) of this fact. The elements of the new situation are not new, but the situation as a whole is new. His duties are merely new applications of moral precepts already known, but they are new applications to him. He may have imagined what they would be, but now he is to realize, to actualize them. To put it more generally, the first thing is to make him think to think out his new relationships, and that is the fundamental purpose of the Masonic symbols presented and explained to him, trite and obvious as all this may seem. Whatever else they may mean, they mean this first.
And the second thing is to put all this into practice—which is a matter of living and is outside the lodge. This is, or should be, Masonic work, spiritual building. In short, the Masonic primary education which should be universal is summed up in the familiar phrase “good and wholesome instruction for their labor.” But all this is in the ritual—of course it is; only it is too often not extracted from the ritual. Suppose a teacher recited the alphabet to a child on the first day of school, and then said, “Now go and read what you like,” it would seem somewhat more insane than even the education of the Russian soldier; yet this is the modern lodge practice in effect. The teachers have learned to say the alphabet and little more. Not being able to read themselves they cannot well teach others.
How then are the teachers to be taught? Let us keep close to the actual situation. Ideally many excellent plans would be possible, but any general movement towards improvement must be commenced, in the average lodge, with the average officers. There is the dead weight of insufficient knowledge, and there are a host of totally erroneous conceptions to be overcome. The difficulties are so great that any suggestion must be only tentative, but we are going to offer one that may seem rather radical, although it is quite in line with modern developments. The lodges have been in recent years more and more shorn of their original rights, liberties and responsibilities, by Grand Lodges, so that a new interference, one which might turn the American Craft back in the direction of the old ways, could not be objected to in principle. While there is already in many jurisdictions analogous legislation respecting the newly raised Master Masons. The suggestion is, that to qualify for office, a Mason should be obliged to pass an elementary examination in certain fundamental things.
To present the suggestion in more detail and to make it more tangible, let us suppose that no one could be appointed a Deacon in the lodge who did not have certificates from some competent authority. This would practically ensure that every Master would have this minimum qualification. And these are the subjects we would suggest. First, a written paper on a number of questions that would require knowledge of the Constitution and Code of the jurisdiction and, perhaps, the more recent decisions of Grand Masters. It is to be elementary, it is not to train Masonic lawyers. It is to make the potential Masters of lodges realize where to look for this information, and how to find it and apply it.
The second examination would be on the ritual. Not repeating it, the present machinery will serve for that, but understanding it. Again it must be elementary. Questions as to the meaning of unusual or obsolete words, of obscure phrases, with the suggestion that a good dictionary would clear up most of the difficulties. This is not memory work, but elementary research if one likes. The questions to be answered with the aid of any reference books needed, but honestly by the individual himself.
The third examination would be more advanced, and would necessitate some real practical thinking. The questions could be taken from almost any series of reports on grievances, or appeals. Present a number of hypothetical cases, of offenses against Masonic law, quarrels and disputes, and ask what the parties ought to have done had they acted as Masons should.
There seems nothing to prevent such requirements being made of those who have ambitions to “go through the chairs.” It would be no hardship on the potential officers. It is in their power to instruct themselves, it needs no new machinery to do this. A man who cannot extract the information he needs from a code or a dictionary, or think out the practical application of Masonic obligations to daily life, is not fit to be Master of a lodge. All that would be needed is the establishment of the examining and certifying authority. The examining could all be done by correspondence, from the central board, or it might be a feature of district meetings. But this is hardly worthwhile to try and work out now. The main thing is to grasp the strategic points of the situation.
It is clear that were all Masters of lodges made to realize that there was much more to their office than merely repeating the formulas of the ritual, some advance would almost automatically follow. The questions asked by newly admitted brethren would be answered instead of being evaded; questioning indeed would be encouraged. It would not be “highbrow stuff,” it would be as well within the powers of the farmer and mechanic as of the lawyer and clergyman. True, many of our members might be bored by it, and think much of it sermonizing. But probably they either need it themselves, or else they should not be in the lodge at all. If it led to the latter element getting out, the Craft would be benefitted thereby.
Here then, as we see it, is the proper scope of Masonic education. In this, Grand Lodges have a plain right and duty to act. It is nothing new, it is only trying to recover what we have to great extent lost. Beyond this it is probable that a Grand Lodge should not go, at least, not as now constituted. “Higher education,” as we may call it, is for the individual, and for unofficial organizations of individuals, quite free from special and local orthodoxies. The search for truth, for new facts, must be free if it is to be successful. Among such agencies stands the Research Society. But as we have said, Grand Lodges should help the individual worker by means of libraries, and wherever dual membership is permitted, Research Lodges might well be encouraged. All this, however, is relatively non-essential; it is the primary education, implied by Masonic ritual and symbolism, that should be made a reality; and once the problem is seen in its true bearings Masonic authorities will doubtless seek some way to recover the effectiveness of the lodge in its teaching and instructional functions.
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