«History of Education & Children’s Literature», X, 2 (2015), pp. 157-183 ISSN 1971-1093 (print) / ISSN 1971-1131 (online) © 2015 eum (Edizioni Università di Macerata, Italy) Educational policy on language teaching in Belgian secondary state schools, 1830-1890 Mara Donato Di Paola History Department, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) mdonatod@ulb.ac.be ABSTRACT: This article sheds light on the educational policy on languages in secondary education in Belgium in the period going from 1830, the moment when the country was created, to 1890, little time after the implementation of important structural reforms at that level. It illuminates this policy through the analysis of three aspects of its practical implementation: the respective place granted to the teaching of the country’s two main mother tongues, French and Flemish; the compared weight of modern languages, classical languages and scientiic disciplines in the curricula; the handbooks, the content of the programmes and the authors studied and proposed as models. The two irst aspects are addressed through a quantitative study of the number of hours devoted to the teaching of the different disciplines in the different sections, on the basis of data found in the «triennial reports» on secondary education. The study shows the growing importance acquired by the teaching of Flemish in a context where French remained nevertheless for a long time the dominating language, and the progressive introduction of modern languages in the curricula, an evolution which didn’t succeed to call into question the model of classical humanities, whose enormous prestige remained intact and which were perceived as the ultimate way to train Belgium’s elites. EET-TEE KEYWORDS: Secondary Education; Mother Tongue; Language Education; Educational Policy; Belgium; XIX Century. Introduction The Belgian literature comprises two different elements, both equally inherent in our national character: two languages, whose simultaneous existence may actually constitute an additional obstacle to the fast and full development of the country, but whose equal importance and rights cannot be ignored at the risk of raising well-founded susceptibilities. Each of these languages, regarded as a mirror of national feeling, deserves to be studied in