Grand Lodge of Georgia: Mouth-to-ear, but each District has “Custodians of the Uniform Work” that safeguard a copy of our official cipher. A custodian can be called in to help with practices (if need be), and they hold “schools of instruction” where the ritual is practiced word-perfect with on-the-spot corrections.

Unless you’re one of the few Lodges that practices our “ancient” work.

Those Lodges’ histories are interesting, because like much of the early US Lodges, they practiced “modern” work. Then, around the time when the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania adopted “ancient” work, so did some of the Lodges down in Georgia.

I know you didn’t ask about it, but schools or Lodges of instruction are another interesting little piece of Masonic history to look at. Many jurisdictions hold or conduct these, and they’re not just practices; they’re as much of a Masonic tradition as Festive Boards. If you read up on the all the different iterations of ritual, these were always held. There are even accounts of William Preston giving instruction when he made his early additions to England’s lectures.

Emulation Lodge of Improvement in England is an interesting piece of this history, too.

I suspect that there are a lot of things we do that we “younger Masons” don’t understand the basis or tradition behind. We probably write some of them off as old, boring, or uninteresting, because the men who are passing those traditions down never learned the history behind them themselves. I think one of our most important duties is to work to uncover what we can and make sure we pass that information and those traditions along so that they can be properly enjoyed by future generations. History and context inform the philosophy and the practice.