This article investigates some of the antecedent conditions underlying the imputation of autonomy within conceptions of "teaching" and "learning". It links the history of those concepts with the separate roles and functions assigned to males and females in specific instances of educational practice. "Teaching" and "learning" are psychoanalysed as images and symbols that have frequently been used in a neutral, asexuate sense. The article suggests that the historical trajectories of these concepts can be considered in relation to cultural and theoretical practices that aimed at the "naturalisation" of a masculine subjectivity. It approaches historical narratives relating to education in light of Luce Irigaray's theory of sexual difference, and examines the role of such narratives for the construction of modern Western pedagogical value systems. In short, it addresses the history of education as symptomatising a mythology of educational subjectivity. The article begins with a brief introduction to Irigaray's use of psychoanalytic theory and its relevance for educational history and philosophy, and then provides examples of narrative taken from the work of historians of the Middle Ages and European Renaissance periods. This material is used to contextualise an analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's intervention in the discourse of educational philosophy when he published "Emile" in 1762. Some of the practical effects of Rousseau's work included imputations of autonomy in teaching and learning, and the author contends that this contributed to a notion of educational subjectivity as singular and sexually neutral. (Contains 10 notes.)