These charges clearly show the great stress that was placed by our ancient Brethren upon the necessity of skill and proficiency, and they have furnished the precedents upon which are based all the similar regulations that have been subsequently applied to Speculative Masonry.

In the year 1722, the Grand Lodge of England ordered the “Old Charges of the Free and Accepted Masons” to be collected from the ancient records, and, having approved of them, they became a part of the Constitutions of Speculative Freemasonry.  In these Charges, it is ordained that “a younger Brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent spoiling the materials for want of judgment, and for increasing and continuing of brotherly love.”

Subsequently, in 1767, it was declared by the Grand Lodge, that “no lodge shall be permitted to make and raise the same Brother, at one and the same meeting, without a dispensation from the Grand Master, or his Deputy;” and, lest too frequent advantage should be taken of this power of dispensation, to hurry candidates through the degrees, it is added that the dispensation, “on very particular occasions only, may be requested.”

The Grand Lodge of England afterwards found it necessary to be more explicit on this subject, and the regulation of that body is now contained in the following language: 

“No candidate shall be permitted to receive more than one degree on the same day, nor shall a higher degree in Masonry be conferred on any Brother at a less interval than four weeks from his receiving a previous degree, nor until he has passed an examination in open lodge in that degree."[74]

This seems to be the recognized principle on which the fraternity are, at this day, acting in this country.  The rule is, perhaps, sometimes, and in some places, in abeyance.  A few lodges, from an impolitic desire to increase their numerical strength, or rapidly to advance men of worldly wealth or influence to high stations in the Order, may infringe it, and neglect to demand of their candidates that suitable proficiency which ought to be, in Masonry, an essential recommendation to promotion; but the great doctrine that each degree should be well studied, and the candidate prove his proficiency in it by an examination, has been uniformly set forth by the Grand Lodge of the United States, whenever they have expressed an opinion on the subject.

Thus, for instance, in 1845, the late Bro.  A.A.  Robertson, Grand Master of New York, gave utterance to the following opinion, in his annual address to the intelligent body over which he presided: