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

Solomonic temple, was not yet dissevered from the pure speculative
element
which had prevailed in it anterior to that period.
IX.
Disseverance of the Operative Element.
The next point to which our attention is to be directed is when, a few
centuries later, the operative character of the institution began to be
less prominent, and the speculative to assume a pre-eminence which
eventually ended in the total separation of the two.
At what precise period the speculative began to predominate over the
operative element of the society, it is impossible to say. The change
was
undoubtedly gradual, and is to be attributed, in all probability, to
the
increased number of literary and scientific men who were admitted into
the
ranks of the fraternity.
The Charter of Cologne, to which I have just alluded, speaks of
"learned
and enlightened men" as constituting the society long before the date
of
that document, which was 1535; but the authenticity of this work has,
it
must be confessed, been impugned, and I will not, therefore, press the
argument on its doubtful authority. But the diary of that celebrated
antiquary, Elias Ashmole, which is admitted to be authentic, describes
his
admission in the year 1646 into the order, when there is no doubt that
the
operative character was fast giving way to the speculative. Preston
tells
us that about thirty years before, when the Earl of Pembroke assumed
the
Grand Mastership of England, "many eminent, wealthy, and learned men
were
admitted."
In the year 1663 an assembly of the Freemasons of England was held at
London, and the Earl of St. Albans was elected Grand Master. At this
assembly certain regulations were adopted, in which the qualifications
prescribed for candidates clearly allude to the speculative character
of
the institution.
And, finally, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, and during
the reign of Queen Anne, who died, it will be remembered, in 1714, a
proposition was agreed to by the society "that the privileges of