The history of Freemasonry originates from the time of the Knights Templer. The aim of Freemasonry is to study the development, evolution and events of the fraternal organisation known as Freemasonry. This history is generally separated into two time periods: before and after the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. Before this time, the facts and origins of Freemasonry are not absolutely known and are therefore frequently explained by theories or legends. After the formation of the Grand Lodge of England, the history of Freemasonry is extremely well-documented and can be traced through the creation of hundreds of Grand Lodges that spread rapidly worldwide.

  English Masonic historians place great importance on 24 June 1717 (St. John the baptist's day) when four London lodges came together at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House in St Paul's churchyard and formed what they called The Grand Lodge of England. Although Freemasonry had existed in England since at least the mid-1600s and in Scotland since The Schaw Statutes were enacted in 1598 and 1599, the establishment of a permanent Grand Lodge in London in 1717 is traditionally considered the formation of organized Freemasonry in its modern sense.

  A credible historical source asserting the antiquity of Freemasonry is the Halliwell Manuscript or Regius Poem – believed to date from ca. 1390. This makes reference to several concepts and phrases similar to those found in Freemasonry. The manuscript itself seems to be an elaboration on an earlier document, to which it refers.

There is also the Cooke Manuscript, an undated manuscript constitution from the mid-15th century, the oldest of the Gothic Constitutions. The first statutory use of the word 'Freemason' in England appears in the Statutes of the Realm enacted in 1495 under Henry VI, although the archaic term “frank mason” had been used fifty years earlier. Prior to that, the earliest use of the term “frank Masons” was in a 1376 reference to the “Company of frank Masons,” one of the numerous craft guilds of London.

By 1583, the date of the Grand Lodge manuscript, the documentary evidence begins to grow. These are described as Head and Principal respectively. As a side note, following a dispute over numbering at the formation of the Grand Lodge of Scotland (GLS) – Kilwinning is numbered as Lodge Mother of KilwinningNumber 0 (pronounced 'Nothing'), GLS. Quite soon thereafter, a charter was granted to Sir William St. Clair (later Sinclair) of Roslin (Rosslyn), allowing him to purchase jurisdiction over a number of lodges in Edinburgh and environs. This may be the basis of the Templar myth surrounding Rosslyn Chapel. The Regius Poem and Cooke manuscript, about 1390 and 1410 respectively, are written in the dialects of the west and southwest of England, and may have been written for the school of masonry associated with Salisbury Cathedral.

Early operative Freemasons, unlike virtually all Europeans except the Clergy, were Free – not bound to the land on which they were born. The various skills required in building complex stone structures, especially churches and cathedrals, allowed skilled masons to travel and find work at will. They were lodged in a temporary structure – either attached to, or near, the main stone building. In this lodge, they ate, slept and received their work assignments from the master of the work. To maintain the freedom they enjoyed required exclusivity of skills, and thus, as an apprentice was trained, his instructor attached moral values to the tools of the trade, binding him to his fellows of the craft.( citation needed ).

Freemasonry's transition from a craft guild of operative, working stonemasons into a fraternity of speculative, accepted, gentleman Freemasons began in Scottish lodges during the early 1600s. The earliest record of a lodge accepting a non-operative member occurs in the records of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel), 8 June 1600, where it is shown that John Boswell, Laird of Aucheinleck, was present at a meeting. The first record of the initiation of a non-operative mason in a lodge is contained in the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) for 3 July 1634, when the Right Honourable Lord Alexander was admitted a Fellowcraft. The first record of the Initiation of a non-operative on English soil, was in 1641 when Sir Robert Moray was admitted to the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) at Newcastle.

From the early 1600s references are found to Freemasonry in personal diaries and journals. Elias Ashmole was made a Mason in 1646 and notes attending several Masonic meetings. There appears to be a general spread of the Craft, between Ashmole's account and 1717, when four English Lodges meeting in London taverns joined together and founded the Grand Lodge of London (now known as the United Grand Lodge of England). They had held meetings, respectively, at the Cheshire Cheese Tavern, the Apple-Tree Tavern, the Crown Ale-House near Drury Lane, the Goose and Gridiron in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Westminster.

With the foundation of this first Grand Lodge, Freemasonry shifted from being an obscure, relatively private, institution into the public eye. The years following saw new Grand Lodges open throughout Europe. How much of this growth was the spreading of Freemasonry itself, and how much was due to the public organization of pre-existing private Lodges, is uncertain.

As so many Famous events happened and were created in England and the rest of the British Isles over the centuries, I thought it would be a good idea to tell the various stories in my various articles of the many English and British Icons from the Anglo Saxon times to present day England's current history.

Editor's Note; A long time ago, in a different life (1998), I began writing some short stories about growing up during the Great Depression so my kids would know what it was like. The editor of some weekly newspapers saw some of them and started running them as a weekly column.

Just as a reminder to our older Brothers and a "how it was back then" for the younger ones, I decided to run a few in this newsletter. Corky

As for the Big Ones, being born in 1928, I grew up during the hard times between the stock market crash of 1929 and the end of World War II in 1945.

By 1943 or 1944 we were beginning to win World War II and German soldiers were being captured and sent back to the United States. All of us boys were very patriotic, collecting scrap metal and buying Defense Stamps, but I guess teen age boys didn't feel as much hostility toward the Germans and the Japanese that the adults did during the war.

I always spent at least part of the summer with my grandparents in Montgomery, Texas. Some of us boys used to walk down to the depot in Montgomery to talk to the German prisoners of war who worked there during the day. There was a POW camp at Huntsville for the German prisoners. A truck brought about 8 or 10 POWs and a US Army sergeant to guard them, to Montgomery each morning. The prisoners were used to load pulpwood onto railroad flatcars. Those Germans were part of General Rommel's troops, that were captured by the American forces in North Africa.

Each one, including the U.S. sergeant had a sack lunch with a jar of tea. After lunch all of the men, including the sergeant would all lay down on the depot's loading platform and take a short nap. The sergeant would often field strip his rifle to show us boys and the Germans how proficient he was and how the rifle operated. Needless to say he didn't worry enough about his crew to keep a clip in his rifle. As the sergeant would say, why worry, where would they go, there's a whole ocean between them and their home. After lunch and a short rest, the prisoners would get up, put a horse collar pad across their shoulder and go back to work. They would transfer the huge stacks of pulpwood logs on their shoulder, one at a time and stack them on railroad flatcars until the army truck arrived in the late afternoon to take them back to the camp for the night.

A few of the prisoners could speak fairly good English and would interpret for the others. They loved to show off pictures of their families and talk about life in Germany before the war and how much the country had improved before the war started. They were proud of things like the Autobahn.

That was the year we discovered that the average German soldier like the average American soldier was a man who loved his family and country and had to obey orders from their superior, whether they agreed or not.

Regarding the war itself, it was funny, but to a man they all still thought Hitler was a great man and would have been the savior of the German people. However, they hated the leaders who were second in command under him such as Goring, Gerbels, Hess and Himmler and blamed them for the war and all of Germany's troubles.

On the other side of the coin, our returning veterans were our heros. Around the end of 1945, large numbers of armed forces veterans begin returning to Houston to take advantage of the Veterans Administration educational benefits. Soon the old Sam Houston High School in downtown Houston had students roaming the halls who were adult men in their twenties or thirties and most of them were adults in ways other then their age. They smoked cigarettes just about anywhere in the building except in the classrooms. They told the hall monitors to go to hell, if they were ask for a hall pass and told anyone from the janitor to the principal to go to hell when they felt pushed. They had been war heroes and the school treated them as heroes. A couple of the veterans even indirectly saved my backside once and were my personal heroes for awhile. In those days most of the boys smoked cigarettes. In four years of smoking in the rest rooms between classes, I never heard of anyone getting caught except for that one time.

There were about twenty of us smoking in the third floor boy's rest room, on that day that when Mr. Roebuck our assistant principal, walked in. He was retiring in a couple of weeks and must have decided it was safe to try at least one raid on the smokers before he left. He stood in the doorway for a long time, either in shock at the number of us or just trying to see how many he knew. Finally after looking us over he ordered, "I want every one of you boys to follow me, we are all going down to my office."

I was one of the closest ones to the door. So I was right behind Mr. Roebuck as he led the group to the staircase and down the stairs to the first floor. He didn't realize he was carrying his load in a leaky bucket however, until we arrived at his office door. He opened his door and turned around to face the group for the first time since we had left the boy's rest room. There were only three of us standing there. The rest had bailed out 1 or 2 at a time as we descended the staircases. Mr. Roebuck's face fell when he realized the two fellows behind me were both veterans and he had to let them go. He looked at me for what seemed forever, before he finally said. "Aw, go on John, the rest of them got away you may as well too."

Understanding Computers - Part 5 of 5

Introduction to Computers

Categories of Software.

Generally speaking, software can be categorized as system software or applications software. A subset of system software is an operating system, the underlying software found on all computers. Applications software, software that is applied, can be used to solve a particular problem or to perform a particular task. Applications software may be either custom or packaged. Many large organizations pay programmers to write custom software, software that is specifically tailored to their needs. We will use several forms of system software (e.g. Windows 2000, MacOS) and several application software programs (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) in this course.

Some Task-Oriented Software.

Most users, whether at home or in business, are drawn to task-oriented software, sometimes called productivity software, that can make their work faster and their lives easier. The collective set of business tasks is limited, and the number of general paths towards performing these tasks is limited, too. Thus, the tasks and the software solutions fall, for the most part, into just a few categories, which can be found in most business environments. These major categories are word processing (including desktop publishing), spreadsheets, database management, graphics, and communications. We will present a brief description of each category here.

Word Processing/Desktop Publishing

The most widely used personal computer software is word processing software. This software lets you create, edit, format, store, and print text and graphics in one document. In this definition it is the three words in the middle-edit, format, and store-that reveal the difference between word processing and plain typing. Since you can store the memo or document you type on disk, you can retrieve it another time, change it, reprint it, or do whatever you like with it. You can see what a great time-saver word processing can be: unchanged parts of the stored document do not need to be retyped; the whole revised document can he reprinted as if new.

As the number of features in word processing packages has grown, word processing has crossed the border into desktop publishing territory. Desktop publishing packages are usually better than word processing packages at meeting high-level publishing needs, especially when it comes to typesetting and color reproduction. Many magazines and newspapers today rely on desktop publishing software. Businesses use it to produce professional-looking newsletters, reports, and brochures-both to improve internal communication and to make a better impression on the outside world. 

Figure 12: Spreadsheet Software

Spreadsheets, made up of columns and rows, have been used as business tools for centuries (Figure 12). A manual spreadsheet can be tedious to prepare and, when there are changes, a considerable amount of calculation may need to he redone. An electronic spreadsheet is still a spreadsheet, but the computer does the work. In particular, spreadsheet software automatically recalculates the results when a number is changed. This capability lets business people try different combinations of numbers and obtain the results quickly. This ability to ask "What if . . . ?" helps business people make better, faster decisions. In this course, we use Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet application software.

Database Management

Software used for database management-the management of a collection of interrelated facts-handles data in several ways. The software can store data, update it, manipulate it, report it in a variety of views, and print it in as many forms. By the time the data is in the reporting stage-given to a user in a useful form-it has become information. A concert promoter, for example, can store and change data about upcoming concert dates, seating, ticket prices, and sales. After this is done, the promoter can use the software to retrieve information, such as the number of tickets sold in each price range or the percentage of tickets sold the day before the concert. Database software can be useful for anyone who must keep track of a large number of facts. Database software is shown in Figure 12.

Figure 13: Database Software

It might seem wasteful to show graphics to business people when standard computer printouts are readily available. However, graphics, maps, and charts can help people compare data and spot trends more easily, and make decisions more quickly. In addition, visual information is usually more compelling than a page of numbers. We use Microsoft's PowerPoint and Adobe's Photoshop application software for graphics. We use it in two ways: for doing original drawings, and for creating visual aids to project as a support to an oral presentation.

Communications

We have already described communications in a general way. From the viewpoint of a worker with a personal computer at home, communications means-in simple terms-that he or she can hook a phone up to the computer and communicate with the computer at the office, or get at data stored in someone else's computer in another location.  We use Microsoft's Internet Explorer application software for doing email, World Wide Web browsing, and participating in Internet discussion groups.

IWhile George Washington (1732-1799) is arguably the best-known American Freemason, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) may be a close second. The National Heritage Museum includes a number of objects depicting Franklin, which recognize his Masonic membership.

This print, Franklin Opening the Lodge, was published by Kurz and Allison of Chicago and dates to 1896. The partnership, which extended from 1880 to at least 1899, produced a wide range of decorative prints, including a series depicting Revolutionary War battles.

Benjamin Franklin became a Freemason when he was initiated in St. John's Lodge in Philadelphia in 1731. His involvement with the fraternity extended over the next fifty years, during which time he held several leadership roles. He served as Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734 and Provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1749. While in Paris during the American Revolution, Franklin became a member of the Lodge of Nine Sisters (La Loge des Neuf Soeurs), serving as its Venerable Master from 1779 to 1781.(For more on Franklin's Masonic activities, see this previous poston our blog.)

In this print, Franklin wears a Masonic apron and a Master's jewel around his neck. He stands in a lodge room, surrounded by a number of Masonic symbols. Presumably, this print appealed to Freemasons around the country and was considered appropriate as decoration in the lodge and in the home.

This print is in the Treasures section of our website, which includes information on approximately 100 objects from our collection.

Franklin Opening the Lodge, 1896, Kurz and Allison (partnership 1880-1899), Chicago, Illinois, National Heritage Museum, Special Acquisitions Fund, 81.56. Photograph by David Bohl.