Modern management agrees that one significant challenge to the progress of an organization can be summed up in seven costly words "But we've always done it that way."

There is an old story that bears retelling because it illustrates how easily things can go on being accepted and go on indefinitely without ever being questioned. When Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander II in the early 1860s, he looked out of a window in the Peterhof Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn. He asked the Czar why the man was there. The Czar asked his aide-de-camp, who did not know. The Commander General was summoned. "General, why is that soldier stationed in that isolated place?" asked the Czar.

"I beg to inform your Majesty that it is in accordance with ancient custom." "What is the origin of the custom?" asked Bismarck. "I do not recollect at present," answered the general. "Investigate and report," ordered Alexander.

The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was posted there by an order put on the books 80 years before! Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered a sentry to be posted to prevent anyone from picking the flower. And in 1860, there was still a sentry on the lawn-a memorial to habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done it that way."

Many Masonic groups today prefer taking the centuries-old beaten paths because we feel more comfortable and suffer less stress and pain than when exploring unfamiliar areas. We honor and cherish our Masonic and traditions, for these are among the elements that make our Fraternity perennially great and honorable. But when we become satisfied that nothing can be improved in the management of the affairs of our Lodges or Temples, when we are convinced that the practices set by those who have sat in the Officers' chairs a century cannot be analyzed and evaluated against the needs of the times, then we are stagnant and headed toward obsolescence. To quote Thomas Carlisle: "Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful."