This study about the figure of Horace Manley Lane takes into account the struggles of representations and the formation of the American Schools network in Brazil in the years 1885 to 1912. Our objective is to shed light on this person whose actions were marked by power disputes, and to his educational and missionary practices. Lane is traditionally known as a consultant for the public education in São Paulo, but as we shall see, his actions go further than that which is presented in the constructed representations in historiography and in the Brazilian educational field. As an educator, he was a defender of the American Presbyterian educational model. In Brazil, he prompted the circulation of some elements of what was then known as modern pedagogy. Moreover, this paper discusses the fact that one of his propositions to disseminate the American Presbyterianism culture and values ​​was the creation of the American schools network. Our hypothesis is that among his practices as an educator there was the organization of schools, especially in cities where he could find the support of Masons, Presbyterians, Republicans; people who were linked to their personal network, thus configuring their power relations with social agents connected with the Masonry, the education and the Presbyterianism. As an educator organized the Mackenzie College, the first private institution of higher education in Brazil.As a missionary, he presented no connection with the Brazilian Presbyterian field, nor did he attend religious services here.Therefore, he did not work the first American Presbyterians, through direct evangelization, but rather through education as a way of indirect evangelization. As a missionary and an educator, I have built representations about Brazil, the local education, politics, and the catechism of the indigenous people. Those representations allow us to understand the representations and practices which are little known or worked on in historiography and on the perspective of history of education. To a theoretical foundation we bring representation concepts developed by Roger Chartier, the social place category, strategy and tactics in Michel de Certeau, the field concept in Bordieu, the society of ideas in Bastian, and the evidential paradigm in Ginzburg, among others. The research uses primary sources, such as, educational reports produced by Horace Lane, American Presbyterian Church reports, educational prospects, missionaries reports,