erent countries.
The provisions of the civil law, which make twenty-one the age of
maturity, have, however, been generally followed. In this country the
regulation is general, that the candidate must be twenty-one years of age.
Such, too, was the regulation adopted by the General Assembly, which met
on the 27th Dec., 1663, and which prescribed that "no person shall be
accepted unless he be twenty-one years old or more."[55] In Prussia, the
candidate is required to be twenty-five; in England, twenty-one,[56]
"unless by dispensation from the Grand Master, or Provincial Grand
Master;" in Ireland, twenty-one, except "by dispensation from the Grand
Master, or the Grand Lodge;" in France, twenty-one, unless the candidate
be the son of a Mason who has rendered important service to the craft,
with the consent of his parent or guardian, or a young man who has served
six months with his corps in the army--such persons may be initiated at
eighteen; in Switzerland, the age of qualification is fixed at twenty-one,
and in Frankfort-on-Mayn, at twenty. In this country, as I have already
observed, the regulation of 1663 is rigidly enforced, and no candidate,
who has not arrived at the age of twenty-one, can be initiated.

Our ritual excludes "an old man in his dotage" equally with a "young man
under age." But as dotage signifies imbecility of mind, this subject will
be more properly considered under the head of intellectual qualifications.

The physical qualifications, which refer to the condition of the
candidate's body and limbs, have given rise, within a few years past, to
a great amount of discussion and much variety of opinion. The regulation
contained in the old charges of 1721, which requires the candidate to be
"a perfect youth," has in some jurisdictions been rigidly enforced to the
very letter of the law, while in others it has been so completely
explained away as to mean anything or nothing. Thus, in South Carolina,
where the rule is rigid, the candidate is required to be neither deformed
nor dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs, as a man ought to be, while
in Maine, a deformed person may be admitted, provided "the deformity is
not such as to prevent him from being instructed in the arts and mysteries
of Freemasonry."

The first written law which we find on this subject is that which was
enacted by the General Assembly held in 1663, under the Grand Mastership
of the Earl of St. Albans, and which declares "that no perso