The Pencil
The pencil is one of the working tools of a Master Mason in the English Emulation tradition, alongside the skirret and compasses. The selection of working tools varies between Masonic traditions; the pencil should not be described as absent from Freemasonry simply because it is absent from a particular jurisdiction's set.[1]
The material tool
The dark material in an ordinary graphite pencil is carbon, despite its familiar name “lead”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes graphite being used for drawing in sixteenth-century Central Europe, with wider use developing in the late eighteenth century. High-quality graphite from Borrowdale in northern England could be cut into sticks and held in a wrapper or holder.[2]
By the end of the eighteenth century, Nicolas-Jacques Conté's method combined graphite with clay to produce pencil cores. The mixture was shaped into rods, fired and enclosed in wood. A sharpened point permits fine lines, while the side of the core produces broader shading. These qualities make the pencil useful for planning, marking and revising a design.[2]
Pencil manufacture also has a documented industrial history. Derwent traces its Lake District production to 1832. The modern object therefore has a history of changing materials and manufacture; its use as a Masonic emblem should not be taken as evidence that today's wooden pencil was used by ancient builders.[3]
Practical use and symbolism
In building work, a pencil is used to mark materials and draw plans. The Emulation explanation takes this ordinary act of recording as a moral analogy: people are accountable for their words and actions. Its religious language associates that accountability with the Great Architect of the Universe.[4]
The tool also occurs in nineteenth-century English Masonic discussion. A question headed “The Pencil” in The Freemasons' Magazine and Masonic Mirror of 22 February 1862 treats it as an established working tool.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ Jorge Sanchez, The “Other” Working Tools—the Chisel, the Skirret, and the Pencil, Hiram's Journal, Widow's Sons' Lodge No. 60, March 2021. Discusses differences between American and English working tools.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Graphite”, Materials and Techniques, 1 May 2020.
- ↑ Derwent, “The Derwent Story”.
- ↑ Grand Lodge of California, Working Tools from Emulation Ritual, Master Mason education resource. Cited here for the identification of the tools and the pencil's general moral meaning.
- ↑ “The Pencil”, The Freemasons' Magazine and Masonic Mirror, 22 February 1862, digitised by the Masonic Periodicals Online project.
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