LE PLAY'S STUDIES IN SOCIAL PHENOMENA. 789 



authorities (autorites societies) that they desired to learn of. From 

 here they made excursions into the immediate neighborhood to learn 

 more definitely of the local influences that had to do with with the 

 community they were studying. These were supplemented by geo- 

 logical explorations, by more extended explorations of the whole dis- 

 trict, and finally by rapid journeys to entirely different districts and 

 new fields of work. " The art of traveling " was with Le Play in- 

 deed an art. 



His trip through the Harz Mountains and the surrounding districts 

 was useful to him in two ways : First, his researches as a mineralogist 

 were such as to make him at once prominent in that department and 

 insure his continued usefulness to his government ; while, secondly, he 

 had had his liking for social investigation heightened and his ideas 

 regarding the proper method of prosecuting these studies rendered 

 more definite. On his return to Paris he took up his studies at once 

 in the laboratory and in the tenement-houses ; and so diligently were 

 his researches subsequently carried on that there is hardly an impor- 

 tant section of Europe which he did not finally visit. From Sheffield 

 to the Ural Mountains, and from Norway even across the strait to 

 Tangier, he prosecuted his studies regarding the lives and habits of 

 the peasants and laborers, trying always not only to learn definitely 

 of their environment and industrial life, but trying also to understand 

 their thoughts and their mode of thinking. He considers the family 

 the social unit, and is ever reiterating the idea that as the mineralogist 

 studies the different minerals, or the botanist the different kinds of 

 plants, so the student of social science must examine and analyze the 

 individual families. To obtain systematic and cumulative results he 

 developed a fixed method of observation, and a fixed terminology for 

 recording the facts observed ; thus rendering the work, even of different 

 men, definite and comparable. All the facts regarding a given family 

 were to be recorded in a monograph prepared according to an unvary- 

 ing model. The first sixteen divisions of each monograph are always 

 the same ; the facts regarding any family are to be marshaled under 

 these rubrics. Under the head of " General Description " the first five 

 of these are grouped and include 1. Character of the soil, labor, and 

 people ; 2. Civil status of the family ; 3. Religion and moral habits ; 

 4. Hygiene and healthfulness ; 5. Social station of the family. Then, 

 under " Means of Existence," are grouped three of the subdivisions as 

 follows : 6. Property ; 7. Subventions ; 8. The tasks of the different 

 members of the family. Next, under " Manner of Existence," come 

 9. Food and meals ; 10. House, furniture, and clothing ; 11. Recrea- 

 tions. Finally, under the division " History of the Family," we find : 

 12. Principal phases of its history ; 13. Customs and institutions as- 

 suring the physical and moral well-being of the family ; 14. Budget 

 of receipts for the year ; 15. Budget of expenses for the year ; 16. 

 Family accounts annexed to the budgets. Beyond the sixteenth divis- 



