William James Ashley: A Pioneer in the Higher Education

Professor Ashley was a pioneer in the most explicit meaning of that term. His work at Oxford identified him with a small group that was deeply concerned with the exploration of new fields of history. He was called to the University of Toronto in 1888 to establish a new Department of Political Science. In 1892, the subject with which he was most intimately concerned was formally recognized by his appointment to a chair in Economic History at Harvard. Distinguished work in this field, however, merely served to reveal new opportunities. Professor Ashley became increasingly aware of the possibilities of developing a programme of instruction for business executives. His work at Harvard was being developed to meet these new needs, when an opportunity was presented to develop such a programme on a larger scale at the University of Birmingham. His appointment as professor of Commerce in 1901 was thus a natural development of his thought and activity, and he gave the rest of his career to a programme which embodied important anticipations of the further development of economic history.