Amédée Jacques

Amédée Jacques (Paris, 4 July 1813 - Buenos Aires, 13 October 1865), often known as Amadeo, was a French-Argentine pedagogue and philosopher and one of the most prestigious educators of his time.

Jacques was the son of Marie Gérard and Nicolas Jacques, a Parisian painter of miniatures. He studied at the Lycée Condorcet and the École Normale Supérieure. He received his doctorate in letters from the Sorbonne at the age of twenty-four, and soon afterwards received a degree in natural sciences. He worked as a docent at the École Normale Supérieure and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

He collaborated on Adolphe Frank's Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques in 1843, and also worked in publishing. He wrote the sections Introduction and Psychologie of Jules Simon and Émile Saisset's Manuel de philosophie à l'usage des collèges.

Jacques clashed with the Minister of Public Education, Victor Cousin, with whom he, Simon, and Saisset differed politically. In 1847, the three professors founded a journal of opinion, Liberté de penser, although Simon soon resigned due to Jacques's collectivist sympathies.

Jacques emigrated to Montevideo, bringing with him a recommendation from Alexander von Humboldt. He intended originally to reorganize the Universidad Mayor, but his initiatives did not win support. Attracted to Entre Ríos by the progressive culture fostered there by its governor Justo José de Urquiza, Jacques decided to move to Paraná. Here he sold his scientific instruments to the local college and acquired supplies for daguerreotypy and surveying, by which he hoped to earn a living.

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