Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Approaching Boys' School Festival And The New Hall At Wood Green.
raise as large a total as the 290 of last year . But , without wishing to be alarmists , we cannot help drawing attention to the fact that whereas , at the Festival of 18 S 4 , the Board of Stewards comprised 130 London brethren , 1 s 6 brethren from the provinces , and four from foreign stations or outside Decrees—that , is 290 all told—the Board for this year , as at present constituted ,
musters only no London brethren , 143 brethren from the provinces , and 3 representatives from outside stations or Degrees . This diminution in number is very serious , and affords us but 1 ittle encouragement to hope for a full subscription list such as even the ordinary requirements of the Boys' School demand . But the approaching Festival is of more than ordinary
importance . Before the year is out the sum of between £ 14 , 000 and ^ 15 , 000 which was raised up to the end of 18 S 3 foi the Preparatory School Building Fund will have been expended . The new buildings will be ready for the reception of the pupil ' s , and the approved candidates are on the list and quite ready , we may be sure , to be admitted . But an increase of 25 boys means an increased
expenditure of something like ^ 1200 per annum , and where are these additional funds to come from , if there is no increase in the Festival returns , or , as seems still more likely , if they happen to show anything like an appreciable decrease ? If nothing comes of nothing , which will be the state of the case if there is no increase over an average total , how
much may be expected from less than nothing , which will be the case , if there is a falling off in the total ? The Building Fund will have been exhausted , perhaps even more than exhausted , for it did not include , as originally contemplated , the cost of purchasing Lindum Villas and the ground they occupied ; and the £ 1000 voted by Grand Lodge on the 3 rd inst . must
be devoted to furniture and fittings . The Executive have no heavy balance at their bankers , and the invested capital of the Institution is very small . But the money required for the additional expenditure will have to be provided , or the election of the additional boys postponed , and the new premises kept vacant and unprofitable for it may be a prolonged period of
time . Will the Craft , having so loyally backed up the Executive in their efforts to meet the growing demands for admission into the School , stop short of completing the success which has been achieved thus far , and by so doing render virtually useless what has and is being done at so much cost
of money and anxiety ? Or will they go just the one step further it is necessary they should go , in order to make profitable what has been accomplished already ? There is none to answer these alternative questions but the Craft itself , and that answer will be known very speedily . Let us sincerely hope and trust it will be in the direction indicated by the latter of the two queries .
Review.
REVIEW .
THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY . Volume IV . By Bro . R . F . GOULD , P . G . W . Thomas C . Jack , 45 , Ludgate-hill . Third Notice . The Second Chapter , which runs from the 339 th to the 400 th page , is equally important as the preceding First Chapter , and contains a great deal not only to make Masonic students think much and long , but tends markedly to enhance the critical ability and skilful dissertations of the ^ areful and
accurate writer . The more we think over the problems dealt with in the last chapter , the more we venture to hold that the balance of probability and actuality , if we may so say , is against Bro . Gould ' s hypothesis of the Scotch origin of our gradal terms , and , though we are not insensible , as we have already said ,
to the very curious coincidences between the Scottish and English Masonic terms as they appear in early eighteenth century English Freemasonry , and to which Bro . Gould so ably and lucidly calls our special attention , yet there is a sufficient English use of analogous terminology , it appears to us , which will fairly account for an independent use of the same words in England in I 72 i , and up to 1725 .
In the Second Chapter Bro . Gould very skilfully introduces and ably dilates upon the most important question of the Third Degree . Bro . Gould sees , and sees clearly , that the theory of the compilation of the Third Degree , as an after-thought and a completion , is , archaically and critically , an utter impossibility , and therefore adopts the idea of a bi-gradal usage , which practically makes the Second and Third Degrees interchangeable in
themselves ; in fact , as the schoolmen say , " convertible terms . Before we pass on , we cannot help pointing to this fact with some little pride and satisfaction , as at one time , almost alone in England , the Freemason upheld the position which Bro . Gould now approves of , and confirms , by his high authority , that the antiquity of the Third Degree , comparatively
speaking to the others , is beyond all doubt , and that if there be modernity in any sense of compilation or rearrangement , it applies rather to the First and Second Degrees . In America , curiously enough , the majority of students have adhered to the views expressed in the Freemason on this very moot and interesting point .
Bro . Gould ' s contention m the Second Chapter professedly is , that as there were , he thinks , two grades in Scotland , so there were also two originally in England , —Anderson drawing on his Scotch experiences , —and that the present tri-gradal system constitutes a developement , a supplementation brought about by the necessities of the case ; but does not really date before 1723 , or thereabouts . He seems to think , moreover , that when
Anderson uses the word " Master , " he means the Master of a . lodge , though in this , we believe , he is in error , and are of opinion he sets far too much store by the parenthetical explanation , ( "being also the Master of a lodge" ) , which can in no sense be identical with , or explanatory of , the term " Master Mason ; " but , according to our opinion , points to quite another explanation altogether , and settles decisively the whole question as regards the integrity and independence of the Third Degree .
On the other hand , Anderson is undoubtedly very careless and lax in his use of the words " Master Mason and Fellow Craft , " " Fellow Craft and Master Mason . " As he employs the terms , they may beeither identical or different Degrees , and , though all early minutes are indistinct , too , since at times we find an entry that such a person was " made Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft , " or " was made a Master Mason , " " was admitted an Apprentice , " " was passed Fellow Craft , " " was passed a Fellow Craft and Master , " it is to be regretted that Anderson did not speak more distinctly on
Review.
the point . On the authority of the additional MS . 23 , 202 , originally published by the late Matthew Cooke , wc must come to the conclusion that there was a difference in 1724 between the Fellow Craft and Master , and that Master could not mean the Master of a lodo-e . Bro . Gould very properl y calls special attention to Anderbon ' s peculiar use of Master and Fellow Craft , instead of Fellow Craft and Master , the normal usage . It may mean a good deal , but it may also mean little or nothing , and wc feci inclined to put it down to Anderson ' s somewhat
slinshod way of expressing himself . To show how indifferentl y and laxly the terms arc used in England so late as 1797 , —we are quoting from the minutes of a private Lodge , ( Antient . ) a certain person is accordingly " made an Entered Apprentice , passed Fellow Craft , and passed and raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason . " It is true that the word " passed" was used indifferently both of Fellow and Master , and we believe that actually thus far the earliest evidence of
raised comes Irom bcottish Masonry , as a technical term , where up to date its ceremonial use seems to be anterior to that of English Masonry . But as Anderson left the whole matter , and perhaps designedly , in much haze and uncertainty , so it has ever since remained , so it still endures , and it is impossible for any of us , and Bro . Gould very properly shrinks from the task , to speak dogmaticall y or decisively on the subject ; all we can do iq to
suggest fair and careful hypothesis in regard of this " moot point , " which will both stand the test of rcasonability and pass the scrutiny of criticism . We should never forget , as we often do in our haste and petulance to-day , when all is not clearat once to the anxious student , that our forefathers wrote , if they wrote at all , purposely and avowedly to conceal any " aporreta " or u ' ncommumcable facts , as they held them , from the eves of the unexnprt nnH thP
profane . The experts and initiates were alone supposed to understand their curt sentences , their mystifying allusions , and their obscure hints , but no one else , and we need not be surprised , and ought never to complain to-day if , after such a lapse of time , much is hidden which wc cannot realize , a great deal is enigmatical which we should wish to be plain , and much more must always constitute an almost inexplicable crux , designed annarentlv to
call into being a school of Masonic students and critics , to animate industry and encourage research . We may fairly , however , expect more evidence to turn up to throw light upon a subject so uncertain and incomplete in itself , and until then we can cheer ourselves with the ingenious , though not infallible solutions of the enquiring Freemason , the commentaries of students , and the cautious suggestions of historians . We are often tempted to ask ourselves the question , when Ashmole calls
mmseir tne 'oldest fellow present , " what does he mean ? Was it merely the generic term for a " Fellow of a Fellowship , " a " Company or Mystery " the "Socius" of a " Societatis , " a " Guild Fellow , " or had it a gradal meaning and bearing ? Were the meetings at Warrington , in 1646 , and at Basinghall-street , in 1682 , the only meetings he attended ? or only those which he has recorded ? and did he attend any meetings which ho has not recorded f
In the present state of the evidence , and of our often amusing " Battle of the Grades , " we are still left in much uncertainty both as to ' the use of terms and the realism of facts . Several questions arise to which at present no one can give a satisfactory reply , though we are inclined to think much evidence about the movement in 1717 still exists stowed awav somewhere . J
Where did Anderson , for instance , obtain his authority for the proceedings he cites between 1717 and 1723 ? The record does not exist in Grand Lodge , or has not been found up to date . Have we even now the true history of the 1716- 7 Revival ? What is the mystery about Sir Christopher Wren ? Sir Christopher Wren onldied in 1723 and must have
y , been perfectly well known to Payne , Desaguliers , Anderson , & c , and is it possible , is it probable , is it even reasonable to assume and suppose , that those distinguished men and our other noble and able rulers in 1738 , would have given hteir consent ' and put their hands to a he , a lie palpable , self-evident , and so easily exposed by Wren s contemporaries , descendants , and friends , as to say he had hppn
a freemason and Grand Master if he had never been admitted into Freemasonry at ali f Surely , the weakness and unreliability of merely negative criticism can no further go I We believe the truth will be found to depend on the somewhat tried life and experiences of our Bro . Sir Christopher Wren from as Anderson rightly puts it , about 1708 and downwards . There are several
pamphlets and even books extant , which the curious may read , alluding to some very disagreeable questions in which Sir Christopher Wren was mPxed up with his employes and Operative Masons and artificers , alike English as Foreign , and find their vent in such works , now scarce , as " Frauds and and Abuses of St . Paul ' s , " & c . There has . - always been an explanation of Sayer ' s Grand Mastership in I 7 i 7 thathe was elected by the ODerativc
as an Operative Grand Master in opposition to Sir Christopher Wren Some have thought he was of the firm of Sayers ' , engravers ; but he certainly was not in a very exalted position , as he was relieved by Grand Lodirc a few years later . "
If , then , Sir Christopher Wren had offended the body of craftsmen it would account for his supersession in 1717 , and the oblivion manifested ' of him , so far as we at present know , in 1723 and at his funeral . These points have yet to be cleared up . Governor Belcher , who seems to have been initiated in London ( at least , presumably so ) about 1704 , would seem to witness to a certain amount of Masonic activity and life then , which agrees with Anderson's general , though incomplete , statements , and we cannot but once more avow our honest opinion that , though capable of some modifications statement in
Anaerson s 173 a of pre-1717 English Masonry is reliable in general , and he certainly was nearer the time he wrote than we are and less likely , for very many reasons , to make determinate misstatements . We confess we do not lay quite so much store as our esteemed Bros . R F Gould and D . M . Lyon seem to do on Anderson ' s statement that the key of a Fellow Craft 13 that by which the secrets contained in the ancient
lodges could be unravelled , as , no doubt , the actual order and arrangement of the gradal ceremonies have been modified and revised as time ran on but it certainly seems to show that much was inchoate which is now complete and much was in outline by imperfect repetition which is now re-ordered and filled up .
„ , ad Anderson always all through used the words " Master Mason and Pellow , we should be disposed to think that Bro . Gould had made out a very good case ; but Anderson also uses " a Fellow Craft and a Master Mason , ' thus " taking away with one hand what he gives with the other . " We have , however , said enough to point out the real and abiding interest of Bro . Gould ' s great work , and which we recommend Freemasons to Study and ponder over themselves .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Approaching Boys' School Festival And The New Hall At Wood Green.
raise as large a total as the 290 of last year . But , without wishing to be alarmists , we cannot help drawing attention to the fact that whereas , at the Festival of 18 S 4 , the Board of Stewards comprised 130 London brethren , 1 s 6 brethren from the provinces , and four from foreign stations or outside Decrees—that , is 290 all told—the Board for this year , as at present constituted ,
musters only no London brethren , 143 brethren from the provinces , and 3 representatives from outside stations or Degrees . This diminution in number is very serious , and affords us but 1 ittle encouragement to hope for a full subscription list such as even the ordinary requirements of the Boys' School demand . But the approaching Festival is of more than ordinary
importance . Before the year is out the sum of between £ 14 , 000 and ^ 15 , 000 which was raised up to the end of 18 S 3 foi the Preparatory School Building Fund will have been expended . The new buildings will be ready for the reception of the pupil ' s , and the approved candidates are on the list and quite ready , we may be sure , to be admitted . But an increase of 25 boys means an increased
expenditure of something like ^ 1200 per annum , and where are these additional funds to come from , if there is no increase in the Festival returns , or , as seems still more likely , if they happen to show anything like an appreciable decrease ? If nothing comes of nothing , which will be the state of the case if there is no increase over an average total , how
much may be expected from less than nothing , which will be the case , if there is a falling off in the total ? The Building Fund will have been exhausted , perhaps even more than exhausted , for it did not include , as originally contemplated , the cost of purchasing Lindum Villas and the ground they occupied ; and the £ 1000 voted by Grand Lodge on the 3 rd inst . must
be devoted to furniture and fittings . The Executive have no heavy balance at their bankers , and the invested capital of the Institution is very small . But the money required for the additional expenditure will have to be provided , or the election of the additional boys postponed , and the new premises kept vacant and unprofitable for it may be a prolonged period of
time . Will the Craft , having so loyally backed up the Executive in their efforts to meet the growing demands for admission into the School , stop short of completing the success which has been achieved thus far , and by so doing render virtually useless what has and is being done at so much cost
of money and anxiety ? Or will they go just the one step further it is necessary they should go , in order to make profitable what has been accomplished already ? There is none to answer these alternative questions but the Craft itself , and that answer will be known very speedily . Let us sincerely hope and trust it will be in the direction indicated by the latter of the two queries .
Review.
REVIEW .
THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY . Volume IV . By Bro . R . F . GOULD , P . G . W . Thomas C . Jack , 45 , Ludgate-hill . Third Notice . The Second Chapter , which runs from the 339 th to the 400 th page , is equally important as the preceding First Chapter , and contains a great deal not only to make Masonic students think much and long , but tends markedly to enhance the critical ability and skilful dissertations of the ^ areful and
accurate writer . The more we think over the problems dealt with in the last chapter , the more we venture to hold that the balance of probability and actuality , if we may so say , is against Bro . Gould ' s hypothesis of the Scotch origin of our gradal terms , and , though we are not insensible , as we have already said ,
to the very curious coincidences between the Scottish and English Masonic terms as they appear in early eighteenth century English Freemasonry , and to which Bro . Gould so ably and lucidly calls our special attention , yet there is a sufficient English use of analogous terminology , it appears to us , which will fairly account for an independent use of the same words in England in I 72 i , and up to 1725 .
In the Second Chapter Bro . Gould very skilfully introduces and ably dilates upon the most important question of the Third Degree . Bro . Gould sees , and sees clearly , that the theory of the compilation of the Third Degree , as an after-thought and a completion , is , archaically and critically , an utter impossibility , and therefore adopts the idea of a bi-gradal usage , which practically makes the Second and Third Degrees interchangeable in
themselves ; in fact , as the schoolmen say , " convertible terms . Before we pass on , we cannot help pointing to this fact with some little pride and satisfaction , as at one time , almost alone in England , the Freemason upheld the position which Bro . Gould now approves of , and confirms , by his high authority , that the antiquity of the Third Degree , comparatively
speaking to the others , is beyond all doubt , and that if there be modernity in any sense of compilation or rearrangement , it applies rather to the First and Second Degrees . In America , curiously enough , the majority of students have adhered to the views expressed in the Freemason on this very moot and interesting point .
Bro . Gould ' s contention m the Second Chapter professedly is , that as there were , he thinks , two grades in Scotland , so there were also two originally in England , —Anderson drawing on his Scotch experiences , —and that the present tri-gradal system constitutes a developement , a supplementation brought about by the necessities of the case ; but does not really date before 1723 , or thereabouts . He seems to think , moreover , that when
Anderson uses the word " Master , " he means the Master of a . lodge , though in this , we believe , he is in error , and are of opinion he sets far too much store by the parenthetical explanation , ( "being also the Master of a lodge" ) , which can in no sense be identical with , or explanatory of , the term " Master Mason ; " but , according to our opinion , points to quite another explanation altogether , and settles decisively the whole question as regards the integrity and independence of the Third Degree .
On the other hand , Anderson is undoubtedly very careless and lax in his use of the words " Master Mason and Fellow Craft , " " Fellow Craft and Master Mason . " As he employs the terms , they may beeither identical or different Degrees , and , though all early minutes are indistinct , too , since at times we find an entry that such a person was " made Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft , " or " was made a Master Mason , " " was admitted an Apprentice , " " was passed Fellow Craft , " " was passed a Fellow Craft and Master , " it is to be regretted that Anderson did not speak more distinctly on
Review.
the point . On the authority of the additional MS . 23 , 202 , originally published by the late Matthew Cooke , wc must come to the conclusion that there was a difference in 1724 between the Fellow Craft and Master , and that Master could not mean the Master of a lodo-e . Bro . Gould very properl y calls special attention to Anderbon ' s peculiar use of Master and Fellow Craft , instead of Fellow Craft and Master , the normal usage . It may mean a good deal , but it may also mean little or nothing , and wc feci inclined to put it down to Anderson ' s somewhat
slinshod way of expressing himself . To show how indifferentl y and laxly the terms arc used in England so late as 1797 , —we are quoting from the minutes of a private Lodge , ( Antient . ) a certain person is accordingly " made an Entered Apprentice , passed Fellow Craft , and passed and raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason . " It is true that the word " passed" was used indifferently both of Fellow and Master , and we believe that actually thus far the earliest evidence of
raised comes Irom bcottish Masonry , as a technical term , where up to date its ceremonial use seems to be anterior to that of English Masonry . But as Anderson left the whole matter , and perhaps designedly , in much haze and uncertainty , so it has ever since remained , so it still endures , and it is impossible for any of us , and Bro . Gould very properly shrinks from the task , to speak dogmaticall y or decisively on the subject ; all we can do iq to
suggest fair and careful hypothesis in regard of this " moot point , " which will both stand the test of rcasonability and pass the scrutiny of criticism . We should never forget , as we often do in our haste and petulance to-day , when all is not clearat once to the anxious student , that our forefathers wrote , if they wrote at all , purposely and avowedly to conceal any " aporreta " or u ' ncommumcable facts , as they held them , from the eves of the unexnprt nnH thP
profane . The experts and initiates were alone supposed to understand their curt sentences , their mystifying allusions , and their obscure hints , but no one else , and we need not be surprised , and ought never to complain to-day if , after such a lapse of time , much is hidden which wc cannot realize , a great deal is enigmatical which we should wish to be plain , and much more must always constitute an almost inexplicable crux , designed annarentlv to
call into being a school of Masonic students and critics , to animate industry and encourage research . We may fairly , however , expect more evidence to turn up to throw light upon a subject so uncertain and incomplete in itself , and until then we can cheer ourselves with the ingenious , though not infallible solutions of the enquiring Freemason , the commentaries of students , and the cautious suggestions of historians . We are often tempted to ask ourselves the question , when Ashmole calls
mmseir tne 'oldest fellow present , " what does he mean ? Was it merely the generic term for a " Fellow of a Fellowship , " a " Company or Mystery " the "Socius" of a " Societatis , " a " Guild Fellow , " or had it a gradal meaning and bearing ? Were the meetings at Warrington , in 1646 , and at Basinghall-street , in 1682 , the only meetings he attended ? or only those which he has recorded ? and did he attend any meetings which ho has not recorded f
In the present state of the evidence , and of our often amusing " Battle of the Grades , " we are still left in much uncertainty both as to ' the use of terms and the realism of facts . Several questions arise to which at present no one can give a satisfactory reply , though we are inclined to think much evidence about the movement in 1717 still exists stowed awav somewhere . J
Where did Anderson , for instance , obtain his authority for the proceedings he cites between 1717 and 1723 ? The record does not exist in Grand Lodge , or has not been found up to date . Have we even now the true history of the 1716- 7 Revival ? What is the mystery about Sir Christopher Wren ? Sir Christopher Wren onldied in 1723 and must have
y , been perfectly well known to Payne , Desaguliers , Anderson , & c , and is it possible , is it probable , is it even reasonable to assume and suppose , that those distinguished men and our other noble and able rulers in 1738 , would have given hteir consent ' and put their hands to a he , a lie palpable , self-evident , and so easily exposed by Wren s contemporaries , descendants , and friends , as to say he had hppn
a freemason and Grand Master if he had never been admitted into Freemasonry at ali f Surely , the weakness and unreliability of merely negative criticism can no further go I We believe the truth will be found to depend on the somewhat tried life and experiences of our Bro . Sir Christopher Wren from as Anderson rightly puts it , about 1708 and downwards . There are several
pamphlets and even books extant , which the curious may read , alluding to some very disagreeable questions in which Sir Christopher Wren was mPxed up with his employes and Operative Masons and artificers , alike English as Foreign , and find their vent in such works , now scarce , as " Frauds and and Abuses of St . Paul ' s , " & c . There has . - always been an explanation of Sayer ' s Grand Mastership in I 7 i 7 thathe was elected by the ODerativc
as an Operative Grand Master in opposition to Sir Christopher Wren Some have thought he was of the firm of Sayers ' , engravers ; but he certainly was not in a very exalted position , as he was relieved by Grand Lodirc a few years later . "
If , then , Sir Christopher Wren had offended the body of craftsmen it would account for his supersession in 1717 , and the oblivion manifested ' of him , so far as we at present know , in 1723 and at his funeral . These points have yet to be cleared up . Governor Belcher , who seems to have been initiated in London ( at least , presumably so ) about 1704 , would seem to witness to a certain amount of Masonic activity and life then , which agrees with Anderson's general , though incomplete , statements , and we cannot but once more avow our honest opinion that , though capable of some modifications statement in
Anaerson s 173 a of pre-1717 English Masonry is reliable in general , and he certainly was nearer the time he wrote than we are and less likely , for very many reasons , to make determinate misstatements . We confess we do not lay quite so much store as our esteemed Bros . R F Gould and D . M . Lyon seem to do on Anderson ' s statement that the key of a Fellow Craft 13 that by which the secrets contained in the ancient
lodges could be unravelled , as , no doubt , the actual order and arrangement of the gradal ceremonies have been modified and revised as time ran on but it certainly seems to show that much was inchoate which is now complete and much was in outline by imperfect repetition which is now re-ordered and filled up .
„ , ad Anderson always all through used the words " Master Mason and Pellow , we should be disposed to think that Bro . Gould had made out a very good case ; but Anderson also uses " a Fellow Craft and a Master Mason , ' thus " taking away with one hand what he gives with the other . " We have , however , said enough to point out the real and abiding interest of Bro . Gould ' s great work , and which we recommend Freemasons to Study and ponder over themselves .