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This article proposes a contribution to the social history of conservative educational ideas –the study of which is often neglected in favor of progressive positions– in the early 20th century. The aim is to show that the anti-republican school discourse is the result of the radicalization process of a group of conservative teachers that occurred from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. Through the analysis of educational journals, we show that the conservative movement, centered around a small group of “patriotic secular teachers” favorable to a return to the Ferry School just after the Dreyfus Affair, grew and became more radical in line with socialist advances, this up to the creation of the Cercle Fustel de Coulanges in 1927. This Circle, which brought secondary and higher education teachers together, openly denounced the Republican school and proposed reform projects that would be taken up under the Vichy regime.