Joseph Lakanal
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Joseph Lakanal (July 14, 1762 - February 14, 1845) was a French politician
Born in Serres, Ariège, his name was originally Lacanal, and was altered to distinguish him from his Royalist brothers. He studied theology, and joined one of the teaching congregations, and for fourteen years taught in their schools. He was professor of rhetoric at Bourges, and of philosophy at Moulins.
He was elected by his native département to the National Convention in 1792, where he sat until 1795. At the time of his election, he was acting as vicar to his uncle Bernard Font (1723-1800), the constitutional bishop of Pamiers. In the Convention he held apart from the various party sections, although he voted for the death of Louis XVI. He rendered great service to the French Revolution by his practical knowledge of education.
He became a member of the Committee of Public Instruction early in 1793, and after carrying many useful decrees on the preservation of national monuments, on the military schools, on the reorganization of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle and other matters, he brought forward on June 26 his Projet d'éducation nationale (printed at the Imprimerie Nationale), which proposed to lay the burden or primary education on the public funds, but to leave secondary education to private enterprise. Provision was also made for public festivals, and a central commission was to be entrusted with educational questions. The scheme, in the main the work of Sieyès, was refused by the Convention, who submitted the whole question to a special commission of six, which under the influence of Robespierre adopted a report by Michel le Peletier de Saint Fargeau shortly before his tragic death.
Lakanal, who was a member of the commission, now began to work for the organization of higher education, and abandoning the principle of his Projet advocated the establishment of state-aided schools for primary, secondary and university education. In October 1793 he was sent by the Convention to the south-western départements and did not return to Paris until after the revolution of Thermidor. He now became president of the Education Committee and promptly abolished the system which had had Robespierre's support. He drew up schemes for departmental normal schools, for primary schools (reviving in substance the Projet) and central schools. He presently acquiesced in the supersession of his own system, but continued his educational reforms after his election to the Council of the Five Hundred in 1795.
In 1799 he was sent by the Directory to organize the defence of the four départments on the left bank of the Rhine threatened by invasion. Under the Consulate he resumed his professional work, as a professor at the Lycee Charlemagne, and after Waterloo (1815) retired to the United States.
He was welcomed there by Thomas Jefferson, and the Congress gave him a grant of 500 acres (2 km²) of cotton-land in Alabama. He then became a planter, and was afterward chosen president of the University of Louisiana.
He returned to France in 1834, and shortly afterwards, in spite of his advanced age, married a second time. He died in Paris on February 14, 1845; his widow survived till 1881.
Lakanal was an original member of the Institute of France. He published in 1838 an Expos sommaire des travaux de Joseph Lakanal.
His éloge at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, of which he was a member, was pronounced by the comte de Rémusat (February 16, 1845), and a Notice historique by F.A. Mignet was read on May 2, 1857.fr:Lakanal