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The Craft in the first period of its existence is called "Operative Masonry" because all its members were practicing, or operative, workmen, builders in a literal sense. Speculative Masonry, which is building in a symbolical or spiritual sense, developed out of Operative, gradually and over a period of many years. Nowadays the conditions of labor are, for the most part, regulated by municipal, state, or national law; in the Middle Ages, when the Operative Masons worked, this was not possible, because government had not been developed to a stage where such a thing was practicable. All the workmen in a given craft (or trade) had an organization of their own, and regulated their own affairs--wages, hours of labor, methods, materials, marketing, prices; they even had their own laws, courts, and methods of punishment. Such an organization was called a guild.

In the guild of builders (or Masons) were workmen of every type required by the needs of the art, such as carpenters, glaziers, wallers, paviors, painters, carvers, as well as Masons properly so called. While these Masons belonged to the guild in the same sense as all the others, at the same time they had an organization of their own, and into this they initiated their own men by ceremonies which they had inherited from the distant past. These Masons were organized into Lodges, or guilds.

Because of the requirements of their society, as well as of their work, they were exceedingly careful in their choice of new members. A new member was a lad in the teachable period, usually from twelve to fifteen years of age. It was necessary that he be known to some member, or members, of the Lodge, and that they should sponsor or recommend him, making themselves responsible for his fitness.

The Masons impressed nobody into their membership against his will; to do such would make a serf, or bondsman, of him, and they admitted no such man; the candidate had to come of his own free will. Since he would be required to do heavy and often dangerous work, it was required that he be sound in body and limb, lest he have not the required stamina or would become through illness or accident a charge upon the brotherhood. He had to be a lad of sound character, in good repute, and able to keep a secret--at the time many of the methods used in building were trade secrets. The discipline of the Craft, moral and physical, was a severe one; without a sound character a man would fail it.

If found thus recommended and qualified the lad (or petitioner) was brought into Lodge, there to be examined in the sight of all, the Brethren deciding by balloting whether to admit him or not. If the ballot was favorable he was thereby elected an Apprentice. He was then bound over, or indentured, to some Master Mason, called an "intender". For a period of years, usually seven, the Apprentice was to live with his master, be a servant to him, obey him, and respect him, and was to receive no wages, but "findings" only, food, clothing, etc. This Master Mason on his part was obligated to train the Apprentice carefully, teach him how to use his tools and everything else about the trade, and to see that he developed properly in his moral and religious character.

After a preliminary probationary period the Apprentice was then called back into Lodge. If upon the intender's report he was shown to be desirable material his selection as an Apprentice was then officially confirmed; his name was entered in the Lodge's book, after which he was called an Entered Apprentice. At the same time he was given a "charge", or set of instructions, as to how he was to work and comport himself, he was told something of the traditional history of the Craft; he was given an obligation; and in all probability received a ceremonial initiation into the secret ritual possessed by the Masons. His status was fixed and defined by Craft law, so that he had certain rights, duties, and privileges, and he was given certain signs and other modes of recognition by which to make himself known to other Entered Apprentices.

For seven years or so he worked under such conditions, a learner of Masonry. At the end of the period he was again called into Lodge; his record was reported, and as a test, or examination, he was compelled to do a difficult piece of work in the sight of all, called his "Master's Piece". If he proved himself to the Lodge's satisfaction he was made a full member of the Craft.

Such was an Operative Entered Apprentice. The conditions, rites, obligations, charges and whatever else belonged to his Entering comprised what we should now call his Degree. As Masonry continued from century to century this Degree became necessarily modified to meet changed conditions and new needs, but in substance it always remained the same; and when in the beginning of the eighteenth century in England the Operative Craft became transformed into a Speculative Fraternity it was retained, albeit for the new purposes of Speculative Masonry, undergoing only such changes as the needs of the Speculative Masonry required. As such we have it to this day.

In the light of the history here so briefly sketched it will prove possible to gain some understanding of the symbols of the Degree, not all of them, for there are too many, but a number of representative specimens sufficient to give an Apprentice a clue to the interpretation of all others.

The Lodge itself is a symbol, a symbol of the universe, its floor being the earth, its covering the sky, its walls the cardinal directions of space, and its members representing all mankind, Masonic teachings are universal; they are as broad as the nature of man, as complex as his needs; a man is not a Mason merely while sitting in Lodge, but everywhere and always, and his Masonry is a way of life, to be followed in all his affairs, as a Symbol the Lodge means that which we stated in the beginning: Masonry is a world in itself. To enter the Lodge represents the being born into that world.

The Hoodwink represents the fact that the profane (or outsider) can have no understanding of Masonry because it is something that can be understood only by first-hand experience, not by hearsay or by looking on it at a distance. A candidate, when first he makes entrance, is in that sense a profane; it is only by the actual practice of Masonry that he will become illuminated. But this Masonic truth is itself only an instance of a larger truth. If a man is in doubt about the value or meaning of life, is it his own fault, or life's? We all know it is his. Life itself practices no deception nor arbitrarily buries itself in darkness; if a man cannot understand it is because his eyes are closed by his own ignorance, indolence, lusts or passion. He wears a Hoodwink; education, and all the other means and methods of enlightenment exist to help him remove it.

When the candidate enters the Lodge he is not as yet his own master because he cannot find his own way, and must follow his guide with perfect obedience. The Cable Tow is a mark of this fact. But it is also, like the Hoodwink, a symbol of a wider truthrathe truth, namely, that every man must remain under the control of others until he is able to control himself. Could all of us achieve self-mastery there would be little need of courts, laws, and policemen to control our actions; each of us would have the law within himself, self operating; but too often we are led toward disorder by our own blind willfulness, and pay the penalty by the humiliation of having others control for us the nature we ought to control for ourselves. So long as we are in that state we wear a Cable Tow; the moment we escape from it into the power and freedom of self-direction we become masters, and need not be led about by others. Our Cable Tow is removed.

When a candidate arrives at the door of the Lodge he is not permitted to walk casually in; entrance is a ceremony. This ceremony is a symbol of the fact that one can make entrance into any of the great realms of human life only in a certain way, under certain conditions, according to certain laws. The whole of apprenticeship is itself a doctrine concerning this truth; it teaches that to arrive at the high places of achievement a man must be qualified and must undergo a long preparation. Nothing that Masonry teaches is more needed by the world just now, when so many young men, out of a nervous impatience, rush into trades, professions, and callings without the necessary training; worse still, such young men appear to believe that life itself needs no preparation and that the work of the mind, of morality, and of religion is something everybody understands instinctively from babyhood on. Such men rush into Masonry in the same way; the thought of undergoing a long ordeal of training, such as that which the Operative Apprentice was made to endure, would appall them. Perhaps if the Craft revived something of the Operative practice, at least in principle, and demanded that every candidate be thoroughly trained in Masonry, it would be better. It might be that fewer members would enter, but it is certain there would be less dead wood lying about the precincts of the Temple.

"Circumambulation" means to "walk around", and refers to an ancient ceremony in which men walked about an Altar, following the same direction as the sun. Every reader will instantly recognize the Masonic ceremony to which it applies. Men in ancient times had the belief that by imitating the sun, or some other natural thing or process, they would gain some degree of control over it to their own advantage. There was a kernel of truth in this belief, and it's that kernel which has been preserved in our own ceremony. In our modem way of speech we call it "cooperation". Not by working against nature, but by cooperating with her do we win her fruits; not in striving against our fellows, or through being at cross-purposes with them, do we make achievements, but rather by working with them. We keep step with them; go in the same direction; their course is our course; all work in common is a kind of Circumambulation.

The East represents Masonic light; therefore the Apprentice is taught to approach it, just as the Operative Apprentice was taught to travel a long path in order to find light on the art he aspired to learn. What is this light? It is of course insight, knowledge, skill, learning, wisdom, information, whatever enables us to learn the nature of the things and forces with which we have to deal during every day of our existence. Our life consists of things, forces, activities in a bewildering variety; unless we find a way to understand them we shall never be able to live happily. Such an understanding is one of the most urgent of all necessities, hence it is set at the very forefrom of the teaching of the Craft whose motto is "Let there be light".

The Obligation of the First Degree is at one and the same time a form of law, in a strict institutional sense, and a symbol of what the idea of obligation means in the world at large. The a, ord "obligation" reveals its own meaning; literally it is "to tie, or bind, something to something else". The word "ligament" comes from the same root. A man may find himself mder obligation in many ways: by being in a position, as when he is the father of a family; by naking a promise; by owing something; by pledging himself; by a contract; also an obligation ;ometimes is presupposed by the rights he may claim, by privileges he enjoys, or by the creed ~e professes. Sometimes he is held to an obligation by compulsion, as in a contract enforceable Dy law; at other times his word or his character is his security. To be under obligation, herefore, is to "owe" something, whether in goods, in services, or in being something, and the vord "owe" is preserved in the word "ought" which in principle covers all that is meant by obligation. The ideal in Masonry is that when a man becomes a Master Mason (i.e. in complete possession and control of himself) he can always be depended upon to do what he ought to do, o be what he ought to be.

In its Ritual, Masonry does not gloss over the difficulties a man will encounter as he goes along, nor does it blindly ignore the possibility of failure or tragedy in human life; far from it! For the Ritual itself is, in the old sense of the word, an "ordeal"; nevertheless it never permits us to forget that however hard or difficult to find the path it may be, always there is light to guide us if only we will seek it. This is expressed in the symbolism of the Great Lights, one of the oldest in all of Masonry. The Holy Bible reminds us that there is a light which comes from God, and that the inner nature of things is not alien to our nature but in harmony with it, so that in seeking our best selves we are seeking our real selves. The Square is an ancient symbol born at a time when men believed the earth to be square in shape; it was used as an emblem of the earth and all that belongs to it: the physical, the natural, body, appetites, desires, passions. The Compasses, originally belonging to the same order of thought, by contrast served as an emblem of the heavens; that is, things moral, intellectual, and spiritual. Under the leadership of God, to bring the physical in our nature under the dominion of the spiritual is a principle, which if a man finds it, will evermore be a great light shining across his days.

The Lesser Lights express a similar truth under a different form, albeit a form as ancient. The Sun was deemed the masculine principle, aggressiveness, pugnacity, masculinity; the Moon was the feminine, the passive, the yielding, the soft. It is when the two are held in equipoise, one balancing the other, that Mastership results, typified in this symbol by the Master of the Lodge.

About the Apron many things may be said. It is the Badge of a Mason, a sign of a man's being such, and as worn by the Apprentice is a mark of his status. It is, because of its color, an emblem of innocence. It is a mark of distinction, more honorable than others, because it represents honorable toil and constructive work. The world is not completed yet, but is abuilding; it owes infinitely more to those who create, who, even to a small degree, help to raise its pillars and to round its arches, than to those who have the lust to spoil, or the passion tc destroy. Not only, therefore, is a Mason himself a builder; he is one who believes in the honor of upbuilding as one of the truest of all ideals, and in wearing his Apron testifies to that faith.

The rite of destitution, whereby a candidate confesses himself poor and helpless as wel! as blind, is another symbol nobody knows how ancient. Many Masons of olden times were won~ to divide initiation into Masonry into two Parts. First, there is a renunciation; the old life is pu off, everything antipathetic to the new life is left behind; honors, badges, and distinctions are discarded; they summed this up in the word "off". Second, there was the preparation: thi: meant putting on the new, taking up the life of Masonry, the working for a different kind o: honor and another kind of reward; they SUmmed this up in the word "on". The two words arc a reminiscence of St. Paul's adjuration to his hearers to put "off" the old man and to put "on' the new. The rite of destitution covers all that is meant by the "putting off" of the old.

According to the old customs practiced by the operative Masons the cornerstone of: building was laid in the Northeast Corner, if not actually then ideally. Northeast stands midww. between the North, region of darkness (for the sun never enters it) and the East, region of light an Apprentice is said to stand there because he is at the dividing line of the two, having left the darkness of the uninitiated behind him but not yet entered into the light of the new life; there is where he stands and it is there that he must begin his building. Furthermore, the Apprentice as he stands in the Northeast Corner is himself a symbol, for while thus standing he means that Apprentices themselves are the foundation of the future Craft, just as the trained youth is elsewhere the foundation of the world as it will be in the coming generation.

In the early days of his probation the Operative Mason was taught to use the simplest tools and to do the most elementary kind of work--such work, for example, as giving to a mass of stone freshly hewn from the quarry a first rough approximation to its proper size and shape. To give it size meant measurement; to give it shape meant to knock away its knobs and irregularities. The twenty-four inch gauge, or some similar tool, was used for the first; the gavel was used for the second. These two very fitly were made to stand for all the tools in an Apprentice's kit. This work as done by the Operative Apprentice was transformed by Speculative Masonry into a symbol of an analogous work necessary to be done by the Speculative Apprentice. A man coming into the Craft may possess habits, traits, or other characteristics that would interfere with his work as a Mason, some habit of speech, some trait of manner, some vice; it is required of him that he remove these and that he bring his character into conformity with the requirements of the Craft - a thing that is the same in principle as the changes necessary to fit a man for any other relationship of life that he may wish to enter, such as marriage, a profession, a career, a friendship, an art. All the methods by which such a reorganization of character may be effected are symbolized by the Working Tools.

In reflecting upon these and the other related symbols of the First Degree it is necessary to remember that Apprenticeship itself is, in Freemasonry, a symbol--one of the noblest we have. It represents the whole idea of education, of preparation, of training. Because the more striking and familiar instances of such training necessarily fall within the period of youth it is easy for us to drop into the habit of looking down from the high platform of our adulthood with a certain kindly tolerance upon the spectacle of studious youth, meanwhile thankful that for us our school days are over.

Nothing could possibly more widely miss the truth than such an attitude! Learning as such does not belong peculiarly and essentially to youth; its importance to the young is a mere incident; it belongs to life itself and as such, without regard to age. To live one's mature years possessed of a prejudice against learning is to seriously handicap one's self in the business of living. The learner must be humble, but to be humble is not a humiliation; he must be obedient, but to obey is as dignified as to command, except to foolish men. The needs and opportunities to serve one kind of an apprenticeship or another fall as frequently in maturity as in adolescence. Who knows, perhaps the whole of a man's life between birth and death may be itself one long apprenticeship to what lies beyond!

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