THE BUILDER NOVEMBER 1919

FREEMASONRY AND EDUCATION
BY BRO. JOSEPH BARNETT, CALIFORNIA

THE TRAINING of the intelligence, the development of the ability to think and reason, is Education. This factor,
whether evolved in the schools or in the active pursuits of commercial life, produced and sustains civilization; and
Freemasonry teaches that its direction is not only toward progress, but is also Godward.

In ancient times, Science was considered of Divine origin, and Art was held in singular esteem. Both were taught
by the priesthood; for the Temple included the School. In the most ancient civilization with which we are familiar,
men who had made some progress in the arts and sciences were deemed worthy to be initiated into an order of the
priesthood of Egypt. In Greece, with which we are still more familiar, the temple Mysteries included both science
and religion; and Divinity was symbolized by one of the sciences, Geometry. From the beginning, knowledge
dependent on the reasoning powers was associated with Omniscience.

Freemasonry asserts "the importance of the study of the liberal arts and sciences." It impresses on men the duty
of applying them; the teaching is that "rational and intelligent beings should ever be industrious ones." From their
study comes understanding, and from their application is developed skill. Reason is honored for its guidance, and
labor for its productiveness; in both we recognize the intelligence that tends toward progress. Freemasonry admits
no illiterates. Every initiate must be able to read and write. Lack of this ability offers evidence that the candidate
is lacking in those basic qualities that go to the making of Masons. Masonry holds all such unfit, because Masons
are men who have a "desire for knowledge"; and he who in this land has not learned to read and write he who in
this land has not learned to read and write has evinced no such desire. It teaches that education, the development
of the reasoning powers, is the plain duty of every man; and it could offer no objection if our government should
make illiteracy a bar to citizenship.

Since the earliest priesthoods were the first teachers, it might have been expected that modern priesthoods would
have been their natural heirs in all that tends toward progress, and that they, too, would have been the intellectual
leaders and benefactors of mankind, especially since they have borrowed and adapted so much from ancient
priestcraft. But for two thousand years, ecclesiastics have affected to despise the reasoning powers that developed
civilization, and have urged in place of them faith and obedience. Modern priestcraft has notoriously opposed every
advance in the natural sciences; its attitude recently toward the theory of evolution is its attitude three hundred years
ago toward the theory of the rotation of the earth. Ancient priestcraft, as culminating in the Mysteries, sought after
knowledge of the natural world, and expressed the forces of nature in terms of Divine beings. Astronomy,
Geometry, and other sciences, grew out of their "survey of nature." And with the book of nature as their only
revelation they found God. The forces of nature were His symbols, and in them was seen the manifestation of His
purposes toward man. Freemasonry has kept the spirit that finds God in nature as in the written word, the spirit that
investigates the mystery of leaf and bud and blossom and fruitage, and the return of springtime and harvest, and
encourages men to contemplate and understand "the glorious works of the creation." Our Fraternity has never taught
that all knowledge is equally important; but it does teach that the useful application of all knowledge is equally to
be admired and encouraged.

During the Dark Ages, when priestcraft was cunningly building up a sinister power based on the negation of human
reason, there was some learning and a little art in the monasteries, and here and there individuals were groping after
the light of science. Masonry had some teaching peculiar to itself; and recognizing in the monks a respect for
knowledge and an aspiration to usefulness similar to their own, Masons for several centuries held their meetings
in the monasteries. When the monkish orders were robbed and dissolved, Masons suffered with them, and were held
in suspicion by both king and priest as possible sources of plots and heresies. Statecraft for the most part abandoned
this attitude long since, but priestcraft has maintained it. Hierarchies never willingly tolerate anything that cannot
be made subservient to their interests.

King and Pope have both claimed absolute power. They agreed, as autocrats have always agreed, that much thinking
was not good for the masses, and should be confined to the classes; otherwise there would be constant discontent.
They failed, or pretended to fail, to realize that progress can only be attained when people begin to think for
themselves, and that progress can never he achieved by that contentment that lets others do our thinking for us.
Freemasonry states explicitly that in youth "we ought industrially to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful
knowledge," and that in manhood "we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties." Both
royalty and hierarchy have claimed Divine Right; they have asserted their superiority to other men. Freemasonry
teaches that all men alike are sons of God, and that as such all have equal claims. It allows no distinction among
men on account of the accidents of birth or fortune, or because of any boast of special commission or mediumship
between God and man; the teaching is not that all men are equal in usefulness, but that all men have equal rights
both human and Divine. It teaches that the Divine Right of all men is associated with the immortal soul of man,
and that the manifestation of the living soul is the intelligence developed by education, whether the education is of
the schools or of the trades. Freemasonry offers no lure to the faithful, presents no cunning inducement, makes no
promises, but in their place asks service intended to develop "those talents wherewith God has blessed us," and
points out that these qualities are in origin Divine. In particular, Freemasonry teaches that no man should be content
with ignorance. It states emphatically that "he who will not be endeavouring to add to the common stock of
knowledge and understanding . . . is a useless member of society."

As the church has its ecclesiastical classics, so the Greek and Latin literatures are the classics of the schools. Up
to a couple of generations ago, it was the particular ambition of college students to be able to read the classics in
the original tongues, and a great deal of their effort was to that end. Translating the classics is now being given over
more and more to specialists, and training the student intellect is accomplished more and more by the sciences. This
is the method that Masonry has always urged; not that erudition is slighted, but that science is more useful Learning
by observation and experience is important Learning by instruction and information is important But both of these
sources of knowledge are limited by opportunity. The knowledge we gain by reasoning out the problems of life is
not limited by opportunity; the more we think for ourselves, the more we are able to think for ourselves. Other
knowledge increases be arithmetical progression, by addition. This knowledge increases by geometrical progression,
by multiplication It depends neither on the senses nor the emotions, but on the intelligence. Its processes are called
education and it is what Masonry has always esteemed and encouraged.

The beginning of education, the foundation of useful citizenship, is the Public School. It is the outcome of the same
influences that developed Freemasonry the desire for knowledge that can be made useful. And the same agencies
that with puerile anathemas assail Freemasonry, also, by slyer methods, attack the Public School. So notoriously
has priestcraft, even when exercising autocratic power, never attempted to establish a general educational system,
that in countries where the priesthood have maintained direct political influence, the people are the most ignorant
and backward among civilized nations. And in every country where the people have established the Public School,
priestcraft has constantly endeavoured to obtain autocratic influence in the schools, so as to exploit them for its own
purposes. In this country, the mischievous, foreign-born thing is called "The Parochial School"; its intent is to train
children to become sectarian partisans, instead of intelligent citizens. Freemasonry teaches religious tolerance, and
opposes priestly meddling. It is an institution pledged to uphold the State; and it is particularly interested in the
schools which the State has established for the development of intelligence in the young that makes for better
citizenship.

Civilization tends to specialization. It is the particular province of the church to consider the relationship of man
to God, of the schools to prepare youth for better citizenship, of the arts to secure more material productiveness.
Freemasonry in its teachings associates all these interests together. It asserts that a combination of all these factors
makes the complete man; that every man should be religious, intelligent and industrious. The priest, the pedagogue,
the laborer, are all too apt to magnify their own particular interests, too prone to see life only from narrow
viewpoints. Freemasonry's survey of life has ever been broader; it asserts that, whatever his occupation, it is the
development of all his faculties that makes man capable f reaching, and shows that he is worthy of reaching, ;hat
high destiny which has been the hope and aspiration of mankind through all the ages.

