LAKANAL, JOSEPH

born July 14, 1762, Serres, France died Feb. 14, 1845, Paris educator who reformed the French educational system during the French Revolution. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Lakanal was working as a teacher. In 1792 he was elected to the revolutionary legislature known as the National Convention. He voted for the execution of King Louis XVI (January 1793). As a member of the Convention's Committee of Public Instruction, Lakanal in June 1793 presented a bill (Projet d'ducation nationale) proposing that the state provide free elementary education for boys and girls. The plan was rejected, but, after the fall of Robespierre's Jacobin regime (1794), Lakanal became president of the education committee. In October he presented a version of his plan for elementary schools that was enforced for about a year. He also presented a plan for coles centrales (secondary schools), which was followed until the lyces were set up in 1802. In 1795 he started the cole normale for training teachers. Proscribed as a regicide, he went to the United States in 1815 after the second Restoration of the monarchy; Lakanal returned to France in 1834.