Herbert Charles Sanborn

Herbert Charles Sanborn (February 18, 1873 – July 6, 1967) was an American philosopher, academic and one-time political candidate. He was the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1921 to 1942, and he served as the president of the Nashville German-American Society. He founded and coached the Vanderbilt fencing team. He ran for the Tennessee State Senate unsuccessfully in 1955. He was opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, and he published antisemitic pamphlets.

Sanborn graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy from Boston University in 1896, where one of his professors was Borden Parker Bowne. During that time, he wrote a book about Viktor Nessler's 1884 opera Der Trompeter von Säkkingen, which was reviewed in a German journal. Sanborn remained Associate Professor until 1921, when he was promoted to full Professor in 1921. Other students included Donald Davidson and Allen Tate, who looked up to Sanborn. According to Davidson, Sanborn would pepper his lectures with "quotations from the original Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, French, or Italian, which of course he would not insult us by translating." His inaugural address was entitled "Aesthetics and Civilization"; it was published in the Peabody Journal of Education a year later, in 1924. Two years later, in 1926, he translated Psychological Studies by Theodor Lipps from German into English. In 1934, he founded the Vanderbilt fencing team and served as its coach until 1957. he continued to coach the fencing team for fifteen more years. A foilist, Sanborn competed individually, for example taking part in a national fencing competition in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1937.

In 1961, Sanborn was an early editor of Mankind Quarterly, an academic journal of scientific racism. He was also an early member of its sponsor, the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, a promoter of racial segregation.

Political activism Sanborn, who was the president of the Nashville German-American Society, supported Germany at the outset of World War I. However, in a 1917 interview with The Tennessean, he said, "There cannot be the slightest doubt as to the loyalty of the German-Americans to the United States in the current crisis."

In 1925, Sanborn supported the Butler Act.

After World War II, he campaigned for the release of Karl Dönitz, Adolf Hitler's successor as the last leader of Nazi Germany. but he was defeated by Democratic candidate Richard Fulton. He also wrote against interracial marriage. He was an honorary editor of the neo-Nazi periodical Western Destiny published by Willis Carto. Our founders and their Fatherland (USA, 1916). Aesthetics and Civilization (Nashville, Tennessee: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1923). The dachshund or teckel; a complete treatise on the history, breeding, training, care and management (New York, Orange Judd Pub. Co., 1949). Philosophies and psychologies. (St. Louis, Missouri, 1952). Dingler's methodical philosophy. (Milano: Editrice La Fiaccola, 1952). The function of history in liberal education. (1950s). The International Conspiracy (Brentwood, Tennessee, 1955).

As an editor Sudermann's Teja (edited and annotated by Herbert Charles Sanborn, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1906). Diseases of canaries (by Robert Stroud; edited by Herbert Charles Sanborn; Kansas City, Missouri : Canary Publishers Co., 1933).