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

Masonry itself to find the materials out of which all three degrees,
as they now exist, were developed_.[98] Even the French Companionage,
or Sons of Solomon, had the legend of the Third Degree long before
1717, when some imagine it to have been invented. If little or no
mention of it is found among English Masons before that date, that is
no reason for thinking that it was unknown. _Not until 1841 was it
known to have been a secret of the Companionage in France, so deeply
and carefully was it hidden._[99] Where so much is dim one may not be
dogmatic, but what seems to have taken place in 1717 was, not the
_addition_ of a third degree made out of whole cloth, but the
_conversion_ of two degrees into three.
That is to say, Masonry is too great an institution to have been made
in a day, much less by a few men, but was a slow evolution through
long time, unfolding its beauty as it grew. Indeed, it was like one of
its own cathedrals upon which one generation of builders wrought and
vanished, and another followed, until, amidst vicissitudes of time and
change, of decline and revival, the order itself became a temple of
Freedom and Fraternity--its history a disclosure of its innermost soul
in the natural process of its transition from actual architecture to
its "more noble and glorious purpose." For, since what was evolved
from Masonry must always have been involved in it--not something alien
added to it from extraneous sources, as some never tire of trying to
show--we need not go outside the order itself to learn what Masonry
is, certainly not to discover its motif and its genius; its later and
more elaborate form being only an expansion and exposition of its
inherent nature and teaching. Upon this fact the present study insists
with all emphasis, as over against those who go hunting in every odd
nook and corner to find whence Masonry came, and where it got its
symbols and degrees.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Our present craft nomenclature is all wrong; the old order was
first Apprentice, then Master, then Fellowcraft--mastership being, not
a degree conferred, but a reward of skill as a workman and of merit as
a man. The confusion today is due, no doubt, to the custom of the
German Guilds, where a Fellowcraft had to serve an additional two years
as a journeyman before becoming a Master. No such restriction was known
in England. Indeed, the reverse was true, and it was not the
Fellowcraft but the Apprentice who prepared his masterpiece, and if it
was accepted, he became a Master. Having won his mastership, he was
entitled to become a Fellowcraft--that is, a peer and fellow of the
fraternity which hitherto he had only served. Also, we must distinguish
between a Master and the Master of the Work, now represented by the
Master of the Lodge. Between a Master and the Master of the Work there
was no difference, of course, except an accidental one; they were both
Masters and Fellows. Any Master (or Fellow) could become a Master of
the Work at any time, provided he was of sufficient skill and had the
luck to be chosen as such either by the employer, or the Lodge, or
both.
[84] The older MSS indicate that initiations took place, for the most
part, at the annual Assemblies, which were bodies not unlike the Grand
Lodges of today, presided over by a President--a Grand Master in fact,
though not in name. Democratic in government, as Masonry has always
been, they received Apprentices, examined candidates for mastership,