Biography of Prof. Thomas J. Sanders, pages 1014 / 1015.  History of De 
Kalb County, Indiana.  Inter-State Publishing Company, Chicago, 1885.

Prof. Thomas J. Sanders, A.M., was born in Wayne County, Ohio, Jan. 18, 
1855, of humble but honorable parents.  Of his ancestors on his father’s 
side, though most probably of English descent, nothing is known certainly 
further back than his grandfather, who was a native of Pennsylvania.  They 
are characterized by that vigor of body and mind, strength of passion, 
inflexibility of will, and boldness of character of those born to command.  
On his mother’s side his ancestry can be distinctly traced through six or 
seven hundred years to the old English stock, tall in stature, and 
possessing great physical and mental power and fertility of resources. The 
subject of our sketch was reared on a farm, enduring many privations mid 
practices of rigid economy and earnest toil.  At the age of sixteen he 
resolved, though he knew not how, to push his education to the highest 
possible point.  Having completed the work in the  old “Stratton” school, he 
prosecuted his studies through many discouragement’s and sacrifices in the 
Smithville High School and the Canaan and Burbank academies.  He then 
entered the classical department of Otterbein University, Westerville, 
Ohio, from which he graduated in 1878, and in the summer of 1880 graduated 
from the Ohio Central Normal School, Worthington, Ohio.  He is at present 
(1885) taking the post-graduate course, department of philosophy, in the 
University of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. Was recently elected first life 
member of the Otterbein University Historical Society, and has just 
received from the State of Indiana a life license to teach.  Previous to 
his graduation he taught two terms of district school, and assisted in the 
academies and High School where he attended.  Soon after his graduation 
from the university he became Principal of the Edon, Ohio, public schools, 
which position he filled for three years. Subsequently he was called to 
the Principalship of the West Unity, Ohio, public schools, and after 
serving one year elected Superintendent of the Butler public schools, 
which position he has since filled.  In teachers’ institutes and 
associations he is an able and enthusiastic instructor.  He is an earnest 
and faithful worker in Sunday-school, engages heartily in all moral 
reforms, addresses public gatherings, and delivers scientific lectures.  
Prof. Sanders is a thorough, efficient instructor, a strict disciplinarian, 
and while he commands the love and esteem of his pupils by his ready co-
operation and interest in their plans, inspires them to do good work, and 
assures them of his own competency to aid them.  He has brought the schools 
of Butler to a high degree of excellence, and conducts them on the most 
approved methods of normal instruction.  He believes that constant 
acquisition should be the laws of the teacher’s life; that no one can 
become a good teacher who is not a good student, and that it is the animus 
or spirit of the teacher that gives him his chief value. Says Prof. John 
Ogden, of Washington, D.C.;   “He is a grand student.  He combines thought 
and study with teaching; in other words, he studies his work.  He teaches 
more than he knows as very good teacher does; i.e., the pupils get more 
from his example than from his precept.  Virtue goes out from him by 
contact, for he is an unconscious teacher -a goodman.”  Prof. Sanders was 
married June2, 1878, to Gertrude E., daughter of Rev. Charles  A. Slater, 
of Burbank, Ohio, also a graduate of Otterbein  University. They have one 
son, Ernest Avery, born June 28, 1881.  They are members of the United 
Brethren church.

Submitted by:
Arlene Goodwin
Auburn, Indiana
Agoodwin@ctlnet.com