This paper analyzes the characteristics of the configuration of secondary education in Argentina with a focus on the relationship between European pedagogues and discourses and local institutions. In particular, it follows the trajectory of two French educators in the creation and development of national secondary schools: Amadée Jacques and Albert Larroque. Who were they? How did these pedagogues and their ideas circulated from Europe to Argentina? What role did they play in the organization of secondary schools? What promises did they represent for the newly created institutions?. Is it possible to identify patterns of foreign influences when looking at secondary school curricula and norms by the end of the nineteenth century in Argentina?

The influence of European pedagogy, particularly at the secondary level, has been recognized throughout the history of education in Argentina (Solari, 1992; Dussel, 2012). Nevertheless, there have been few comparative historical studies that address the relationship between these so-called European influences and the Argentine secondary school.

The study of the configuration of secondary education should consider three dimensions:

• A historical dimension to understanding the processes of passing on discourses and practices as a legacy that gives shape to school institutions (Acosta, 2014; Tröhler & Lenz, 2015);
• A systemic dimension to understand the dynamic on the basis of which school practices are structured; in particular, processes of systematization and segmentation (Mueller, 1992; Ringer, 1979 & 1992; Viñao, 2002; Acosta 2011 and 2014);
• A dimension tied to the internationalization of education, more specifically, the relationship between global tendencies and national practices in the context of the expansion of schooling (Schriewer, 2002 and 2010)

The literature on the internationalization of schooling provides a suitable theoretical framework in which to analyze the transference, borrowing, and circulation of ideas and practices between different scenarios in the sphere of education. Together with this, recent production on transnational comparison in historical studies offers relevant input as well (see Popkewitz, 2015; Tröhler, 2013; Roldán Vera & Fuchs, 2015). It is possible, in this framework, to understand the role of European pedagogues in Argentina in the second half of the 19^th century.

The concept of internationalization, as developed by Schriewer (2011), refers to the process of transnational migration, expansion, and reception, a process constructed historically in a range of logics of appropriation determined by deep cultural structures (Caruso and Tenorth, 2011). At the same time, it assumes the global expansion of transnationally standardized educational models and the persistence of various networks of socio-cultural interconnection (Schriewer, 2011).

When considering secondary education institutions, in particular, we follow Tröhler & Lenz’s (2015) argument: theories and models dealing with educational matters at the international level hardly consider the question on how a specific school organization (as part of an institutional legacy from an idiosyncratic culture) behaves between the tensions of global agendas and national culture. (p. 13)

Furthermore, the authors propose that inside the real organization of educational systems there are rules and practices that represent traditions (in the sense of inherited cultural models of order and systems of reasoning); these systems guarantee cultural continuities which allow new laws or programs to be implemented successfully. The paper attempts to look into the cultural models of the foreign pedagogues, their encounter with new institutions in Argentina and the configuration of state secondary schools by the end of the nineteenth century.

There are many ways to consider the encounter between external ideas and local practices: laws, organizational-pedagogical norms, State bureaucratic structure, curriculum, circulation of pedagogical ideas (publications, congresses, exhibitions), participation of European pedagogues (professors, principals, legislators, public officials), and State surveys. In this study, we will analyze the participation of the Frenchmen Jacques and Laroque at secondary schools created between 1853 and 1865. These are Colegio del Uruguay, Colegio de San Miguel and Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires at which both foreign educators were principals. Furthermore, their experience at these institutions laid grounds for a national document published in 1865 for the organization of secondary schools for all the country. To do so, the paper looks into primary and secondary sources. The former include the curricula and set of rules at the three institutions mentioned above between 1853 and 1865. The latter include previous studies on the organization of secondary education during the nineteenth century in Argentina as well as autobiographical novels by former students at them.

In Argentina, the creation of free and compulsory elementary education was preceded by the development of secondary education, which took the Prussian and French form of organization together with a propaedeutic function. These schools, in the figure of the Colegio Nacional (national schools), were the institutions responsible for the formation of the ruling classes and were oriented to the university. The selectivity and the humanistic content strengthened homogeneity both in students and schools in relation to the institutional model. The national State was responsible for the organization of these schools. It did so through organizing existing educational options in order to render secondary school education uniform. We understand this as a process of externalization because, in order to effect this change, they resorted to ideas and practices—many of them already operative in the territory—advanced by European educators. With time, the national State itself began to develop instruments to organize the nascent system that was strikingly similar to those used in Europe, particularly France. The work is expected to offer historical evidence about an often mentioned but rarely studied process.

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