The Orange-Rockland District School of Instruction is currently in limbo because of a lack of requests to host it. If your Lodge would like to hold a SoI program on a ritual topic of your choosing, please contact the DDGM.

In the meanwhile, Jerusalem Temple Lodge will be hosting a monthly School at 9:00 a.m. on the third Saturdays and Stony Point-Wawayanda expects to start a School of their own shortly. Please contact these Lodges for more details.

We have received word that R:.W:. Martin Lindenberg, Past DDGM of the Orange-Rockland District, was hospitalized in Florida shortly after arriving for his winter trip. It is a flair-up of his condition of vasculitis and we expect him back on his feet soon.

Bro. Stu Osborne of Athelstane Lodge has had a little bit of a relapse and is still in Good Sam. We await additional news about these Brothers. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

The Concept of Progress in the Victorian Era
by Elliott Saxton
Member of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota Education Committee

It is often said that masonry is a progressive science. These words may seem odd to the modern listener. Certainly, when we hear of major progress in science, we imagine medical science, computer science or atomic science; we don't necessarily think that we will hear about the construction of buildings. The phrase "Masonry is a progressive science" as if it is plainly clear. It seems as if this statement is a simple matter of fact. How is it that masonry, as an architectural science, having been in existence for countless ages, is progressive?

Let us imagine that it is a literal statement. Perhaps this statement is telling us that humanity is constantly making innovative discoveries in the art of masonry, and by masonry we mean the literal construction of buildings. Or perhaps there are many ways to understand the phrase "Masonry is a progressive science".

Albert Pike, in the Victorian era, would be first inclined toward our first notion of masonry as a progressive science. Progress, in the Victorian era was viewed as a method to an end. One made progress in the construction of a building, towards the curing of a disease, towards a destination. One of the chief goals that brought the most pride to the Victorian age was the conquest of nature. The Victorians saw themselves as detached from and above nature; progress was the rational human overcoming nature.

Progress in the Victorian age was attained by the will of God and a reliance on divine providence. God was often seen as the source of all wisdom, giving the human the only genuinely functional mind. God gave humans dominion over the animals and nature to shape and mold as they saw fit.

It makes sense that Albert Pike was easily able to see masonry as a progressive science. Masonry has a clear goal; to build. It triumphs over nature, creating more improved shelters. It also requires the triumph of the intellect over a more rude state. The mason is also told that he is to work six days and rest on the seventh day, because in six days God created the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh day. On the seventh day, the Victorian would be quite pleased to see the mason adoring his great creator.
Possibly more than anything, the literal masonry of building comfortable shelter marked the distinction between human culture and society and the savagery of nature. Before the discovery of the atom and science, as we understand it in modern times perhaps, masonry above every other science was the icon of progressive science in the Victorian age.

More than an understood matter of fact, the idea of masonry as a progressive science can also be understood as most masons understand it; that masonry is a succession of symbols and allegories, building on each other successively. Symbols are used in masonry because their metaphorical meaning can be easily understood without much further explanation in addition to being able to be understood in scores of different levels.

Masonry, like all knowledge, is progressive. An encyclopedia is a great source of information, but no one would give one to an infant and expect that to be the end of that child's education. Knowledge must be digested in little pieces before it can be understood on a larger scale. Learning is a process, a series of steps that with help and discourse, build on each other, just as masonry can be seen as a process of laying bricks on each other cemented with brotherhood.

Masonry as a metaphor for knowledge is a well fitting image for the Victorian era. Through the modern science of the time, men built themselves with the goal of becoming better men, through God, intellect and reason. Surely freemasonry provided the intellectual discourse that the men of the Victorian era were looking for.

Knowledge progresses on the individual level, but also on the generational level. A teacher is required for the learner, the learner advances in knowledge and becomes the teacher and the series progresses. In lodges, we sometimes find the progress of learning grind to a halt, as pike writes in Morals and Dogma. Masonry sometimes sinks into the commonplace, instruction is cut short and the instructor's knowledge is limited to what little they had been taught. Now, the Masonic symbols which were kept veiled in secret from oppressive powers and governments for the safety of the brethren because they represented rationalism, free thought and freedom, are sometimes kept away from the brethren themselves.

The true mason, as Pike relates, is always seeking knowledge. Inevitably, a newly raised master mason will see the broken columns of the ruined temple, that is, Masonic symbols poorly explained, or a poor initial Masonic experience. After seeing this, the true mason will be inspired to dig progressively deeper for knowledge, that most genuine and real of human treasures. Having come to a deeper level of understanding in the world, philosophy, and the sciences, will not delude himself into thinking he cannot improve himself further. He will, through reading, discourse, and deliberation, continue to venture progressively deeper in Masonic knowledge. It is though the knowledge produced by the progress of the true mason that the knowledge of masonry can be restored and used to instruct future generations of master masons.

A quote from Morals and Dogma illustrates this theme of Masonic progress quite well: "It is the seed, which has in it the power to grow, to acquire, and by acquiring to be developed as the seed is developed into the shoot, the plant the tree." Here we see a metaphor for the progress of knowledge, the journey of the true mason's search for light is represented by the metaphor of the seed and tree.

It is interesting that Pike italicizes 'power', stressing that a man has the power to learn, but may choose not to. Also interesting is the order; growth, acquisition, development. Before acquiring knowledge, we must first grow to be able to understand it, and only after acquiring that knowledge, can we develop. This is also fitting metaphor for the degrees of freemasonry. For a man to come to freemasonry, he must be sufficiently mature, moral and upstanding, and have a desire for education and self-improvement. Freemasonry does not turn dirt into trees; it turns seeds into trees, just as it makes good men better.

The metaphor of the seed is also a very Victorian metaphor, showing, naturally the triumph of the intellect, but also the seed overcomes its natural surroundings just as the Victorians sought to overcome their natural surroundings by intellect.

So we see that just like many concepts and symbols of freemasonry can be understood in many different ways, so too can the phrase "Masonry is a progressive science." From a literal interpretation, to various metaphorical interpretations, the phrase, as used in Morals and Dogma finds a nice fit with Albert Pike in the Victorian era.