Historic Philadelphia

town also is a hub for youth services, starting
with the Masonic Children’s Home that
cares for children from families that can
no longer manage their needs. The adjoining
Masonic Conference Center - Patton Campus
is the headquarters for the Pennsylvania Youth
Foundation which provides coordination,
leadership, and citizenship training, scholarships
and education assistance for Masonic
youth and members of Masonically-related
youth groups: DeMolay for young men, and
Rainbow Girls and Job’s Daughters for
young ladies.
There also is the Pennsylvania Masonic
Foundation for Children, headquartered in the
Masonic Temple at Philadelphia, which carries
out important youth-benefiting services
throughout Pennsylvania. Working with the
Pennsylvania Department of Education since
1985, the Foundation has provided funds and
facilities for training educators in the Student
Assistance Program. Because of this Masonic
initiative, every secondary school in the
Commonwealth has a team of faculty members
trained to recognize and help students who are
experiencing problems due to alcohol or drug
abuse, mental health, or family problems.
The Foundation also supports the
Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and
Delinquency, providing similar funding and
facilities for the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) program. Nearly one
thousand law enforcement officers have been
trained, mostly at the Masonic Conference
Center - Patton Campus, to present drug and
alcohol abuse prevention programs in
schools, and that number continues to grow
by nearly one hundred each year.
Individual Masonic lodges throughout the
Commonwealth support youth sports, senior
citizen centers, police needs, and a host of
other community efforts. Pennsylvania lodges
also support and contribute to the work of
associate Masonic organizations throughout
North America, such as the seventeen Shriners
Hospitals and three Burn Centers for Children,
the Scottish Rite Masonic Learning Centers for
Children with learning disabilities, the Knight
Templar Eye Foundation to finance eye
surgery and research, and other outreach to
those who need help.
There is more to Freemasonry than charity.
It is the oldest, largest, continuously active
fraternal organization in the world, offering
bonds of friendship, fellowship, and mutual
respect. Membership is limited to men at least
twenty-one years of age (except by rare
dispensation granted by the grand master)
who must meet strict qualifications of good
character and reputation. Freemasonry is not
a religious organization, but its members
must acknowledge monotheism and are
encouraged to be active in their own faiths.
The medieval stonemasons and craftsmen,
to whom modern Masons trace the origins of
their principles and traditions, kept their
construction techniques secret and developed
modes of recognition among workers in their
craft. Modern Masonry continues the
tradition of passwords, signs and rituals, but
it is not a secret society.
Masons traditionally proclaim their values
with the stated purpose “to make good men
better.” Masonic lodges strive to promote
kindness in the home, honesty in business,
fairness in work, courtesy in society, concern
for the unfortunate, reverence for God, and
love for one another.
It is fitting that the grand “Temple of
American Freemasonry” stands at the center
of William Penn’s City of Brotherly Love.
✧
Above: Corinthian Hall, the Masonic
Temple’s largest lodge room, is 106 by 53
feet, with a fifty-two-foot-high ceiling,
decorated with Grecian architecture and
artistic motifs.
Below: Egyptian Hall, one of the seven
magnificent meeting halls in the Masonic
Temple, derives its décor from such ancient
Nile Valley temples as Luxor and Karnak.
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