Article courtesy of: The Masonic Trowel Website.
http://www.themasonictrowel.com/masonic_talk/stb/stbs/60-10.htm

“The trowel is an instrument made use of . . .”, but until it is actually employed, it is useless. If the greatest need of our time is for men who understand friendship, morality, and brotherly love, . . . if the greatest danger to modern man is the loss of individuality because of the demands for conformity and obedience to dogma, Freemasons should be especially suited to fill the need and to overcome the danger. But the trowel of every Master Mason must go to work each day!  

Just as operative masons use special tools for particular situations, so Speculative Masons must learn to use specialized trowels for spreading the cement of brotherly love and affection. Operative craftsmen use corner trowels, curbing trowels, guttering trowels, brick trowels, pointing trowels, – each one shaped and fashioned for a particular operation.  

Speculative Master Masons must learn to use the specialized trowels of appreciation, admiration, compliment, and congratulation to spread the mortar of mutual esteem which harmonious community life requires. Speculative Master Masons must learn to use the specialized trowels of forebearance and conciliation to spread the cement of mutual respect and confidence without which democracy cannot function. Speculative Master Masons must learn, to use the specialized trowel of reverence for truth and for the dignity of every individual, no matter how disagreeable either may be, to infuse into public life the essential ingredients of personal freedom.  

Speculative Master Masons must learn to use the specialized trowels of kindness and gentleness, of compassion and service to all men, if they would spread the cement of genuine love and understanding.  

This must be the great objective of Masonic education, if Builders are to learn how to use their tools properly, especially the trowel. This must be the fundamental program of Freemasonry, if it is to remain true to the central purpose of its ancient charges and landmarks.  

Just as an operative workman learns to use each trowel for a particular need or situation, so every Master Mason needs to learn the uses of the spiritual trowels which symbolize the power of brotherly love and friendship. There is need in every lodge for more Masonic instruction than that contained in the ritual.  

Every Builder should be helped to that realization, so beautifully described by Joseph Fort Newton, which comes to proficient Craftsmen who have learned to use the trowel:  

“When is a man a Mason? When he knows how to sympathize with men in their sorrows, yea, even in their sins – knowing that each man fights a hard battle against many odds. . . . When no voice of distress reaches his ears in vain, and no hand seeks his aid without response. When he finds good in every faith that helps any man to lay hold of divine things and sees majestic meanings in life, whatever the faith may be. . . . When he knows that down in his heart every man is as noble, as vile, as divine, as diabolic, and as lonely as himself, and seeks to know, to forgive, and to love his fellow man.”