It is significant that every French ruler after Napoleon viewed control over the schools as essential to political success. In 1816, the restored Bourbon monarch attempted to turn back the clock in a variety of ways, but refused to give up the power that state-controlled education inherited from the Revolution represented. Instead, he signed a decree which maintained that instruction founded "on the true principles of religion and morality [is] not only one of the most fertile sources of public prosperity but also . . . [contributes] to the good order of society, [prepares] the way for obedience to the law, and for the performance of duties of all sorts."

Still, at this time, the government was willing to let the church dominate education, although under state direction, and to allow the important role of local, particularly aristocratic, patronage to continue through the private endowment of charitable schools run by religious orders. Some officials within the educational bureaucracy were also eager to support alternatives like the schools using pupils as monitors, as proposed by the newly-founded Société pour l'Instruction Élémentaire. But the closely identified interests of the monarchical state, the Catholic Church, and the aristocratic classes in the period of the Restoration allowed for a compromise in the control over education between public and private efforts and between church and state interests. Indeed, to the conservatives who held sway during this epoch, religious schooling was often regarded as the surest safeguard of stability.

— Schooling in Western Europe by Mary Jo Maynes (Page 53)