Buisson, Ferdinand-Edouard, << boo ee SAWN, fehr dee NAHN ay DWAHR >> (1841-1932), was a French educator who won the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize for his support of human rights. Buisson helped found La Ligue des droits de l’homme (The League of Human Rights) and served as its president from 1913 to 1926. He earned much praise for his peace efforts and attempts to reconcile France and Germany after World War I (1914-1918).
Buisson was born in Paris and studied at the University of Paris. He could not obtain a teaching post in his homeland because he had refused to swear allegiance to the dictatorship of Emperor Napoleon III in 1866. He moved to Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he taught philosophy at the Academie de Neuchatel until 1870.
At the first Geneva peace conference in 1867, Buisson advocated the formation of a United States of Europe. Following the conference, he wrote an article entitled “Abolishing War Through Education,” which highlighted his pacifist (antiwar) beliefs. His book Liberal Christianity (1865) stresses tolerance in matters of personal faith.
Following Napoleon III’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Buisson returned to France. There he became an educational administrator and founded an organization for war orphans. In 1878, he became general inspector of primary education, and by 1879, he was director of primary education, a position that he held for 17 years.
During the 1880’s, Buisson helped establish a free, nonreligious system of primary education in France. From 1896 to 1902, he was professor of education at the Sorbonne. Buisson served twice as a radical socialist member of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the French Parliament), from 1902 until 1914, and from 1919 until 1924.
Buisson also campaigned for social welfare legislation, women’s suffrage (right to vote), and proportional representation (a system of appointing members of a legislature based on each party’s share of the popular vote). He shared the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize with German writer Ludwig Quidde (see Quidde, Ludwig ).
