What is the significance of the tools used in the Entered Apprentice Degree?

The twenty-four-inch gauge represents time well employed 1. Divided into twenty-four parts corresponding to the hours of the day, its speculative application teaches the Mason to measure his time 1. It directs him to partition the day into three equal portions: eight hours devoted to the service of God and a worthy distressed brother, eight hours to his usual vocation, and eight hours to refreshment and sleep 1. In operative mason's work, the gauge is used to measure the dimensions of a stone under preparation, distinguishing it from the unmarked rule used by a Master 1.

operations of the lodge assign the common gavel as another tool of the degree, derived physically from the stonemason's hammer with a cutting edge 1. Operatively, it is employed to break off the rough corners of raw stones 1. While the library records its physical origins and operative function 1, the supplied passages do not set out the speculative moral instruction attached to the gavel in the degree.