FREEMASONRY: ITS HISTORY AND AIMS. 



263 



ows are provided with rooms and pecuniary al- 

 lowances. 



The Institution for Boys was founded in 1798 

 when six boys, orphans of Masons, were clothed 

 and put to school ; this number was in 1810 in- 

 creased to fifty, and in 1813, soon after the union 

 of the rival Grand Lodges, to seventy, by amal- 

 gamation with a similar charity which had been 

 founded in 1808 by Sir Francis Columbine Dan- 

 iel, Knt.; M. D., and by his noble exertions had 

 already provided for nearly 1,000 children. In 

 1857 the Grand Lodge purchased the estate at 

 Wood Green, and erected the first building for 

 the reception of the boys who had hitherto been 

 placed out at various schools. In 1865 the erec- 

 tion of a new and larger structure necessitated a 

 loan of £10,000, the whole of which has been 

 since paid off. At present 176 boys are entirely 

 maintained until the age of sixteen, receiving ac- 

 cording to their position either a classical or a 

 sound modern and commercial education, and on 

 leaving school are placed in offices or trades suited 

 to their circumstances and abilities. • 



The Institution for Girls was first conceived 

 by the Chevalier Bartolomeo Ruspini, surgeon- 

 dentist to King George III., in 1788, and thanks 

 to the zealous cooperation of her Royal Highness 

 the Duchess of Cumberland, who enlisted the 

 sympathy of many of the royal family, and of the 

 nobility, it was opened in the following year for 

 fifteen girls. In 1793. a schoolhouse was erected 

 near the Obelisk in St. George's Fields, South- 

 wark, but the lease expiring in 1851 a new and 

 commodious building was erected on three acres 

 of freehold ground in an open and healthy situ- 

 ation adjoining Wandsworth Common. The girls 

 remain here until they are sixteen years of age, 

 when they return to their friends, or are placed 

 in situations as governesses, or in houses of busi- 

 ness. They receive an excellent practical educa- 

 tion, taking their turn in all the domestic duties 

 of the house, and being made expert needlewom- 

 en, but that the higher branches of instruction 



are not neglected is shown by the number who 

 pass with honors or obtain prizes at the Cam- 

 bridge Local Examinations every year. The num- 

 ber of girls at present rtiaintained in the school 

 is 148. 



The ordinary annual expenditure of these 

 three institutions exceeds £21,000; yet, though 

 but £2,000 is derived from dividends, large bal- 

 ances remain over every year. 



Both schools are open, not only to orphans, 

 but to the children of Masons reduced by mis- 

 fortune. Every care is bestowed on the mate- 

 rial, moral, and religious welfare of the children, 

 who are found in after-life almost invariably to 

 reflect credit on the institution where they have 

 been brought up. Many private lodges emulate 

 one another in the appropriation of great part of 

 their incomes to charitable uses ; but even this, 

 if it could be known, would give a very imper- 

 fect idea of the assistance and encouragement 

 afforded by Masons to their less fortunate breth- 

 ren. Votes and interest in elections of all kinds, 

 nominations to schools, offices and appointments, 

 patronage, custom, and acts of kindness and 

 friendship, have no ascertainable money value, 

 but moral support is no less real than pecuniary 

 help, because it cannot be expressed in the form 

 of a balance-sheet, and secrecy is the very es- 

 sence of Masonic charity, as it is of everything 

 belonging to the craft. 



Such, then, is Freemasonry, and to quote the 

 words of a German brother — " Such a universal 

 association is essentially necessary. All others, 

 depending upon similarity of rank or calling, 

 upon political opinions or religious creeds, suffer 

 more or less from exclusiveness. This union of 

 unions, which joins all good men into one family, 

 in which the principle of equality, together with 

 that of brotherly love, that is, love of the human 

 race, is the predominant one, and the end and 

 aim of all its moral influence upon others — this is 

 Freemasonry.'''' — Macmillan''s Magazine. 





