Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play

Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play (April 11, 1806 - April 5, 1882 in Paris), was a French engineer, sociologist and economist, born at La Rivière-Saint-Sauveur, a village near Honfleur (Calvados), the son of a custom-house official.

He was educated at the École Polytechnique, and from there passed into the École des Mines. [Paris School of Mines] In 1834 he was appointed head of the permanent committee of mining statistics, and in 1840 engineer-in-chief and professor of metallurgy at the École des Mines, where he became inspector in 1848.

For nearly a quarter of a century Le Play travelled in the various countries of Europe, and collected a vast quantity of material hearing upon the social condition of the working classes. In 1855 he published "Les Ouvriers européens", which comprised a series of thirty-six monographs on the budgets of typical families selected from the most diverse industries. The Académie des Sciences conferred on him the Montyon prize.

Napoleon III, who held him in high esteem, entrusted him with the organization of the Exhibition of 1855, and appointed him counsellor of state, commissioner general of the Exhibition of 1867, senator of the empire and Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.

Initially an atheist, Le Play became convinced of the need for religion over time, in 1864 publishing an essay defending the religious idea against Darwinism and Scepticism. [CathEncy|wstitle=Pierre-Guillaume-Frédéric Le Play] He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1879, three years before his death.

In 1856 Le Play founded the "Société internationale des études pratiques d'économie sociale", which has devoted its energies principally to forwarding social studies on the lines laid down by its founder. The journal of the society, "La Réforme sociale", founded in 1881, is published fortnightly. Other works of Le Play are "La Réforme sociale" [2 vols., 1864; 7th ed, 3 vols., 1887] "L'Organisation de la famille"; [1871] and "La Constitution de l'Angleterre". [In collaboration with M. Delaire, 1875] [See article in "Harvard Quarterly Journal of Economics" (June 1890), by H. Higgs.]

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