Masonic History
No one knows with certainty how or when the Masonic Fraternity was formed. A widely accepted theory among Masonic scholars is that it arose from the stonemasons' guilds during the Middle Ages. The language and symbols used in the fraternity's rituals come from this era. The oldest document that makes reference to Masons is the Regius Poem, printed about 1390, which was a copy of an earlier work. In 1717, four lodges in London formed the first Grand Lodge of England, and records from that point on are more complete.
Within thirty years, the fraternity had spread throughout Europe and the American Colonies. Freemasonry became very popular in colonial America. George Washington was a Mason, Benjamin Franklin served as the head of the fraternity in Pennsylvania, as did Paul Revere and Joseph Warren in Massachusetts. Other well-known Masons involved with the founding of America included John Hancock, John Sullivan, Lafayette, Baron Fredrick von Stuben, Nathanael Greene, and John Paul Jones. Another Mason, Chief Justice John Marshall, shaped the Supreme Court into its present form.
Over the centuries, Freemasonry has developed into a worldwide fraternity emphasizing personal study, self-improvement, and social betterment via individual involvement and philanthropy. During the late 1700s it was one of the organizations most responsible for spreading the ideals of the Enlightenment: the dignity of man and the liberty of the individual, the right of all persons to worship as they choose, the formation of democratic governments, and the importance of public education. Masons supported the first public schools in both Europe and America.
During the 1800s and early 1900s, Freemasonry grew dramatically. At that time, the government had provided no social "safety net". The Masonic tradition of founding orphanages, homes for widows, and homes for the aged provided the only security many people knew.
Today in North America, the Masonic Fraternity continues this tradition by giving almost $1.5 million each day to causes that range from operating children's hospitals, providing treatment for childhood language disorders, treating eye diseases, funding medical research, contributing to local community service, and providing care to Masons and their families at Masonic Homes.
The four million Masons worldwide continue to help men and women face the problems of the 21st century by building bridges of brotherhood and instilling in the hearts of men ideals for a better tomorrow.
Masonic Education
In the Ancient world the Liberal Arts and Sciences consisted of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Grammar also included the art of memorization.
The Medieval Freemasons were so devoted to the Liberal Arts and Sciences that the Old Constitutions (Cooke manuscript) that were the rules on which a Charter should be given to the Fraternity, used the Polycronicons, or histories of the world, to give prominence to an old legend about two pillars on which the "secrets" of the Arts and Sciences had been preserved through Noah's Flood.
The Freemasons of the Middle Ages, always anxious to elevate their profession above the position of a mere operative art, readily assumed these liberal arts and sciences as a part of their course of knowledge, thus seeking to assimilate themselves rather to the scholars who were above them than to the workmen who were below them. Hence in all the Old Constitutions we find these liberal arts and sciences introduced at the beginning as forming an essential part of the body of Masonry. Thus, in the Landsdowne manuscript, whose date is about 1560, (and it may be taken as a fair specimen of all the others) these sciences are thus referred to:
"We minde to shew you the charge that belongs to every treu Mason to keep, for in good Faith if you take good heed it is well worthy to be kept for A worthy Craft and curious science, --Sirs, there be Seaven Liberall of Masonry (geometry) is one."
It is not therefore surprising that, on the revival of Masonry in 1717, these seven liberal arts and sciences were made a part of the system of instruction. At first , of course, they were placed in the Apprentice's degree, that being the most important degree of the period, and they were made to refer to the seven Masons who composed a Lodge. Afterwards, on the more methodical division of the degrees, they were transferred to the Fellow Craft, because that was the degree symbolic of science, and were made to refer to seven of the steps of the winding stairs, that being itself, when properly interpreted, a symbol of the progress of knowledge. And there they still remain.
Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry