He studied theology, and joined one of the teaching congregations (Pères de la Doctrine Chrétienne), and for fourteen years taught in their schools.

Lakanal became a member of the Committee of Public Instruction early in 1793, and after carrying many useful decrees on the preservation of national monuments, on the military schools, on the reorganization of the Jardin des Plantes as the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, and other matters (such as the creation of the École publique des Langues Orientales vivantes), he brought forward on 26 June his Projet d'éducation nationale (printed at the Imprimerie Nationale), which proposed to lay the burden of primary education on the public funds, but to leave secondary education to private enterprise; public fêtes were also assigned specified sums, and a central commission was to be entrusted with educational questions.

[1] The project, to which Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès also contributed, was refused by the convention, who submitted the whole question to a special Commission of six, which, under the influence of Maximilien Robespierre, adopted a report by Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (shortly before his death).

Under the Consulate and Empire, Lakanal resumed his professional work, as a professor at the Lycée Charlemagne, and after the battle of Waterloo (1815), he retired to the United States.

Lakanal's éloge at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, of which he was a member, was pronounced by the Comte de Rémusat (16 February 1845), and a Notice historique by François Mignet was read on 2 May 1857.