Excerpted from “The Masonic Scholar: A Manual of Masonic Education for Candidates”

Printed by the Grand Lodge of California, F:.& A:.M:.

The hoodwink represents the darkness in which the uninitiated stand as regards Masonry. It is removed at the moment of enlightenment, suggesting that we do not create the great things in life, such as goodness, truth and beauty, but find them. They always exist, regardless of the blindness of any individual.

The Apron is at once an emblem of purity and the badge of a Mason. By purity is meant clean thinking and clean living, a loyal obedience to the laws of the craft, and sincere good will to the Brethren; the badge of a Mason signifies that Masons are workers and builders, not drones and destructionists

The Great Lights of Masonry are the Holy Bible, the Square, and the Compasses. As a Great Light, the Holy Bible represents the Sacred Book of the Law, and is a symbol of man’s acknowledgement of, and his relation to Deity

The Rite of Circumambulation is Masonry’s name for the ceremony in which you are conducted around the lodge room, an allegorical act rich with many meanings. One of these is that the Masonic life is a progressive journey, from station to station of attainment, and that a Mason should continually search for more light.

Nowhere in Masonry do we find the impact of symbolism more significant than in its application to the Working Tools. Without them, Speculative Masonry would be but an empty shell of formalism, if indeed, it managed to exist at all. While they do contain the whole philosophy of Masonry, the various Working Tools, allocated to the three degrees, by their very presence declare there is constructive work to be done, and by their nature indicate the direction this work is to take.

Lodges and Grand Lodges whose charters' roots derive from the United Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of England , The Grand Lodge of Ireland or the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland use the expression, A∴F∴& A∴M∴ 

Those Grand Lodges that don't use the appellation "Ancient", claim descent from the "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons under the constitution of England" during the period from 1717 until 1813. 

This English Grand Lodge was constituted from four lodges on June 24, 1717. A later Grand Lodge in England, styling themselves Ancient, labelled the first group "Modern" although today the preferred term is "Premier." The "Moderns" and "Ancients" united in November 25, 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of England [now styled the United Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of England]. 

The choice of style is not universal as some Grand Lodges simply chose one or other title for reasons of their own. The usage has no bearing on regularity or recognition. --Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon