THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

order of men to whom building was at once an art and an allegory. So
that, not only the exigences of his occupation, but the importance of
the day to a young man, and the spirit of the order, justify such a
conclusion.
Have we any evidence tending to confirm this inference? Most
certainly; so much so that it is not easy to interpret the hints given
in the _Old Charges_ upon any other theory. For one thing, in nearly
all the MSS, from the _Regius Poem_ down, we are told of two rooms or
resorts, the Chamber and the Lodge--sometimes called the Bower and the
Hall--and the Mason was charged to keep the "counsells" proper to each
place. This would seem to imply that an Apprentice had access to the
Chamber or Bower, but not to the Lodge itself--at least not at all
times. It may be argued that the "other counsells" referred to were
merely technical secrets, but that is to give the case away, since
they were secrets held and communicated as such. By natural process,
as the order declined and actual building ceased, _its technical
secrets became ritual secrets_, though they must always have had
symbolical meanings. Further, while we have record of only one
oath--which does not mean that there _was_ only one--signs, tokens,
and words are nearly always spoken of in the plural; and if the
secrets of a Fellowcraft were purely technical--which some of us do
not believe--they were at least accompanied and protected by certain
signs, tokens, and passwords. From this it is clear that the advent of
an Apprentice into the ranks of a Fellow was in fact a degree, or
contained the essentials of a degree, including a separate set of
signs and secrets.
When we pass to the second period, and men of wealth and learning who
were not actual architects began to enter the order--whether as
patrons of the art or as students and mystics attracted by its
symbolism--other evidences of change appear. They, of course, were not
required to serve a seven year apprenticeship, and they would
naturally be Fellows, not Masters, because they were in no sense
masters of the craft. Were these Fellows made acquainted with the
secrets of an Apprentice? If so, then the two degrees were either
conferred in one evening, or else--what seems to have been the
fact--they were welded into one; since we hear of men being made
Masons in a single evening.[97] Customs differed, no doubt, in
different Lodges, some of which were chiefly operative, or made up of
men who had been working Masons, with only a sprinkling of men not
workmen who had been admitted; while others were purely symbolical
Lodges as far back as 1645. Naturally in Lodges of the first kind the
two degrees were kept separate, and in the second they were
merged--the one degree becoming all the while more elaborate.
Gradually the men who had been Operative Masons became fewer in the
Lodges--chiefly those of higher position, such as master builders,
architects, and so on--until the order became a purely speculative
fraternity, having no longer any trade object in view.
Not only so, but throughout this period of transition, and even
earlier, we hear intimations of "the Master's Part," and those hints
increase in number as the office of Master of the Work lost its
practical aspect after the cathedral-building period. What was the
Master's Part? Unfortunately, while the number of degrees may be
indicated, their nature and details cannot be discussed without grave
indiscretion; but nothing is plainer than that _we need not go outside