This article studies the foundations of laic moral education in Spain. Some aspects of laic moral education can also be found in other nations, including the emergence of the laic man or the need for an educating State; other aspects of laic moral education, however, are peculiar to the Spanish case, such as the influence of Krausoinstitutionism and the programmes of 1931 Republicanism. This analysis of laic moral education centres on the bipolarity of traditionalism/liberalism. The article takes 1857 as its starting point, a date that is significant for the birth of laic morality and the Spanish education system. The article's end point is 1936, on the threshold of the Civil War. This bipolarity of traditional/liberal is in combination, on the one hand, with the demands of Krausoinstitutionism for an independent morality and neutrality in instruction as tools for the attainment of a moral ideal of preparing men and, on the other hand, the Republican vindication of an autonomous morality and school laicism as key to the preparation of citizens, as well as with the demand for a civil morality fostered by an educating State.