This article aims to perform a comparative analysis of two classic works of the historiography of Brazilian education. The first is the book published by José Ricardo Pires de Almeida, entitled Public Instruction in Brazil (1500-1889): history and legislation first published in 1889; the second refers to the book The Instruction and the Provinces – 1st Volume From the Amazons to the Alagoas by Primitivo Moacyr, published in 1939. In this analysis, we intend to explain the characteristics and understand the theoretical and methodological conceptions that guided the construction of the writing of these authors. For the analysis, we cut the public instruction in the period of the Empire in the Province of Rio Grande do Norte, after the additional Act of 1834. Michel de Certeau's (1982) deliberations on the relationship between history and writing underpinned our investigation into the history of authors. The realization of this study highlighted the importance of the works for the field of History of Education and demonstrated that the writings were permeated by the political and cultural relations of the time, associated with the practices of registration and compilation of information, primarily official, defended by the Brazilian Historical and Geographic Institute (IHGB). The central focus of these writings was state actions in the field of education.