Joseph Lakanal

Joseph Lakanal (* July 14, 1762 in Serres- sur -Arget, department Ariège, † February 14, 1845 in Paris) was a French politician. He reformed the school system sustainable.

Life

Lakanal was professor of rhetoric at first and later philosophy at the Pères de la Doctrine Chrétienne ( en: Fathers of the Christian Doctrine ) in various cities of France before he joined the French Revolution. He was MP for the National Convention Ariège, where he was part of the Mountain, and voted for the execution of Louis XVI.

As a member of the Comité de l' instruction publique ( de: Committee for Public Education ) of the National Convention Lakanal was involved in the publication of a report on the state military schools and described the corresponding device in Paris as " one of the most obnoxious monuments that of despotism to arrogance has educated and vanity. " It is also due to one of his reports that the National Convention on 19 July 1794, the property rights of authors, composers, painters and draughtsmen in their works stipulated by law; he prompted Claude Chappe, the inventor of the telegraph, to pass the title of an engineer as a lieutenant of the pioneers.

Education policy

Posterity owes to him the preservation of the Jardin des Plantes, which he left in 1793 to reorganize under the name Muséum national d' histoire naturelle. At his suggestion - Projet d' éducation nationale - decided the National Convention on 18 November 1794, the creation of 24,000 primary schools to improve public education and reduce illiteracy. In 1795 he left the Convention on the Organisation of the Écoles normal ( high school teacher ) and a national education project vote. In this context, he developed an idea that is still taken up in the French education debate as an argument for the respect of social progress essential value of education: " Only the analysis capable of understanding to create anew, and the dissemination of their methodology will destroy the inequality of knowledge. "

Furthermore, he reimbursed the Convention report on the creation of the Ecole publique des langues orientales vivantes ( de: Public school of modern languages ​​of the East ).

Once again re-elected in the Council of Five Hundred, Lakanal worked there the basic rules for the establishment of a national institute, from which should indicate the Institut de France later and suggested a list of people before, which should constitute the core of the staff of the Institute to complete, by members to be chosen. This science corps should include three sections: the first dealt with scientific physics and mathematics, the second with political science and philosophy, and the third with literature and the fine arts. After its founding Lakanal was elected as a member of the second region and became secretary of this range.

Commissioner General in the east of the Republic of

After he was elected two times in a row by the Seine- et- Oise to deputies, he leans in 1798 from the office. A year later he was sent to the function of a Commissioner to Mainz, there to reorganize the new department, which had been added in the course of the Napoleonic wars France. In 1799 he handed Mathias Metternich the office of the police chief, who was together with Lakanals private secretary Jean Dagobert d' Aigrefeuille, also head of a Denunziationsbüros the French administration in June 1799.

In the First Empire

The Coup of 18 Brumaire put his other activities in the Republic Cisrhenanischen an end. Bonaparte himself ordered the dismissal of the passionate Republican. In the First Empire he takes a Lehrruf on to the Chair of ancient languages ​​at the École centrale, now Lycée Charlemagne, in the Rue Saint- Antoine and met a teacher at the Lycee Bonaparte as an economist. Finally, he takes over in 1809 the post of Inspector of Weights and Measures, while at the same time working out an edition of the works of Jean -Jacques Rousseau and wrote a treatise on political economy.

Emigration

In the course of the restoration, he emigrated to America, where he became president of the University of Louisiana in New Orleans, after some wandering before he establishes himself as a farmer in Alabama. There founding in 1817, several hundred refugees from Santo Domingo, led by two ex- generals of Napoleon Bonaparte, who received Vine and Olive Colony, and for this purpose 320 square kilometers of the U.S. government. Very quickly give the settlers the olive and wine growing in favor of the production of cotton on and write as some of the first cotton growers of the United States history.

After the July Revolution of 1830 in France Lakanal waiting three years to the political situation has stabilized, before returning to Paris, where he will receive a seat in the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

Lakanal finally dies on February 14, 1845 in Paris, his young wife and her young child leaving behind despite his long career in poor conditions, and is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. His grave in the 11th section is a free concession at the direction of the prefect of 16 February 1847.

Castle of Saint- alvere

The castle of Saint- alvere, only restored in 1780, was burnt down during the Revolution by Joseph Lakanal, just as she was in the possession of Lostanges family.