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

with the consent of his parent or guardian, or a young man who has
served
six months with his corps in the army--such persons may be initiated at
eighteen; in Switzerland, the age of qualification is fixed at twentyone,
and in Frankfort-on-Mayn, at twenty. In this country, as I have already
observed, the regulation of 1663 is rigidly enforced, and no candidate,
who has not arrived at the age of twenty-one, can be initiated.
Our ritual excludes "an old man in his dotage" equally with a "young
man
under age." But as dotage signifies imbecility of mind, this subject
will
be more properly considered under the head of intellectual
qualifications.
The physical qualifications, which refer to the condition of the
candidate's body and limbs, have given rise, within a few years past,
to
a great amount of discussion and much variety of opinion. The
regulation
contained in the old charges of 1721, which requires the candidate to
be
"a perfect youth," has in some jurisdictions been rigidly enforced to
the
very letter of the law, while in others it has been so completely
explained away as to mean anything or nothing. Thus, in South Carolina,
where the rule is rigid, the candidate is required to be neither
deformed
nor dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs, as a man ought to be,
while
in Maine, a deformed person may be admitted, provided "the deformity is
not such as to prevent him from being instructed in the arts and
mysteries
of Freemasonry."
The first written law which we find on this subject is that which was
enacted by the General Assembly held in 1663, under the Grand
Mastership
of the Earl of St. Albans, and which declares "that no person shall
hereafter be accepted a Freemason but such as are of _able_ body."[57]
Twenty years after, in the reign of James II., or about the year 1683,
it
seems to have been found necessary, more exactly to define the meaning
of
this expression, "of able body," and accordingly we find, among the
charges ordered to be read to a Master on his installation, the
following
regulation:
"Thirdly, that he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, freeborn,
of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, and that _he have his right
limbs as a man ought to have."_[58]