Frank Knight Sanders, A. B., Ph. D., D. D., president of Washburn College, Topeka, was born in Jaffna, Ceylon, India, June 5, 1861, and is a son of Rev. Marshall Danforth Sanders, a Congregational minister and missionary, and wife, whose maiden name was Georgiana Knight. The parents were both natives of Massachusetts. The father was born at Williamstown, Mass., and was a graduate of Williams College of Massachusetts and of Auburn Theological Seminary of Auburn, N. Y. Immediately after his ordination as a minister he became a foreign missionary and spent the remainder of his life at Ceylon, India, engaged in his work. He died in Ceylon, in 1872, when but fifty years of age. He had been selected to be the first president of Jaffna College, an American institution of learning in Ceylon, and had raised the endowment for that college in this country, but the strenuous effort put forth in the labor overtaxed his strength to such an extent that his death occurred before the college was fully organized. His wife's death also occurred in Ceylon, in 1867. The Sanders family had lived in New England long before the Revolutionary war and the ancestry on the paternal side, on one line traces back to Roger Williams. The Knight family is also an old New England family. The father of Georgiana Knight was the Rev. Asher Knight, a distinguished Congregational clergyman of Massachusetts, who for many years was pastor of the Congregational church at Peru, Mass. Mr. Sanders has two full brothers and one half brother living. They are: Dr. Joseph A., chief physician at Clifton Springs Sanitarium of New York; Rev. William H., a missionary at Kamundongo, Angola, West Africa; and Walter E., a business man of Cleveland, Ohio. He has two brothers deceased: Rev. Charles S., who for twenty-three years was a Congregational missionary in Turkey; and Marshall D., who died in his youth.

Frank K. Sanders came to the United States with his parents when but three years old and was brought up by his uncle, Dr. Henry M. Knight, at Lakeville, Conn., who made him a member of his family. He was prepared for college in a private academy in Lakeville and in the preparatory department of Ripon College and later graduated in the latter school. The following is his record in "Who's Who": Received the degree A. B. from Ripon College, in 1882; instructor in Jaffna College, Ceylon, India, from 1882 to 1886; Ph. D., Yale University, in 1889; instructor in Biblical Literature and Semitic Languages in Yale College, from 1888 to 1891; Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature at Yale, from 1891 to 1901; Professor of Biblical History and Archaeology and Dean of the Divinity Faculty at Yale University, from 1901 to 1905; secretary of the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society at Boston, Mass., from 1905 to 1908; since June, 1908, he has been president of Washburn College."

He is a member of the American Oriental Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis; the Archaeological Institute of America; and the Religious Education Association, of which he was the first president. In Topeka he belongs to the Commercial Club, the Fortnightly Club and the Young Men's Christian Association. He is a member of Central Congregational Church of Topeka.

Dr. Sanders has won distinction not only as an instructor in Biblical Literature but also as an author. Among his books are: "The Teacher's Life of Christ," published in 1907; "Studies in the Apostolic Age," in 1908; "Outlines for the Study of Biblical History and Literature," in 1906; "The Messages of the Earlier Prophets," in 1898; "Messages of the Later Prophets," in 1899; and "Messages of the Sages," in 1912. He is the editor of the "Historical Series for Bible Students," published in nine volumes, and of the "Messages of the Bible," in twelve volumes. He also has been a regular contributor of weekly articles in the Sunday School Times since 1895.

On June 27, 1888, was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Sanders and Miss Edith Blackman of Whitewater, Wis. They have three children: Helen, Morris Blackman, and Frank Knight, Jr.