 Canadian professor of political economy Harold Innis (1894 – 1952) was influenced by a maxim of the then McMaster University professor Wallace, 'that the economic interpretation of history is not the only interpretation but is the deepest interpretation'.Dr Wallace was educated at Toronto and Oxford (Master of Arts) universities, and taught history (1906 – 1920) at the universities of Western Ontario, McMaster and Toronto.In 1920 he became an assistant librarian, then in 1923, the librarian at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 1954 with title Chief Librarian.