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A Tribute to Dr. Layton "Jack" Horner Tribute I Tribute II Tribute III

Tribute I A Scholar Who Truly Understood Japan       Last year on 9-8-90, in Safford, Arizona, in his own house, one American quietly finished the 75th and last year of his life.       Now in Japan only a few people know the name Dr. Horner, but I think almost everybody knows the book Jack and Betty. In 1947-48 the first English study book was written in Japan. Layton Horner wrote it. Professor Inamura, working on the text with Dr. Horner, suggested the book be called Andy and Betty because A is the first letter of the alphabet and B the second. But Horner felt is wasn't such a good title because the first name should be simpler --one used in over 80% of the schools and is still used today. It is a symbol of the basic style of English in Japan.       During 1947, '48, '49, the young Dr. Horner was assigned to the Shizuoka Military government Team as Civil Education and Information Officer. In addition to helping reorganize the school system in the prefecture, part of his job was to write this book. He liked the Japanese people and tried very hard to understand them and the system of education and worked very hard at making the Americans and Japanese respect each other. He continued this throughout his life.       In later life he became a Professor of Japanese history and culture at the University of North Carolina and Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington. While at PLU he started a M.A. program for Japanese teachers of English. He felt strongly about travel and education and that teachers should spend time in an English speaking country to study and learn to speak the language properly. He wrote two special books about U.S./ Japanese cultures. He set up two exchange programs for librarians, between the U.S. and Japan, and funded them with the proceeds of the books.       The Horners hosted Japanese students in their home and helped many young Americans spend a year or two in Japan tutoring English --all part of his idea of building a bridge across the Pacific. He travelled a great deal trying to understand the people of the world. He spent much time in Japan and his key point was that travel and the exchange of ideas would help people better understand each other and help solve international problems.       He lived a very simple life-style and took great pleasure in helping others. He will be greatly missed and remembered by many people.       1991 - Article written by Professor Yasuteru Otani, Professor of English, Osaka University, for a journal for teachers in Japan (Translated from Japanese) Tribute II Retracing: A Memorial Layton Horner 11/25/14 - 9/8/90 By Winifred J. Bundy       Every creature is better alive then dead --men, moose, and pine trees-- and he who understands it right will rather preserve its life than destroy it. Henry David Thoreau.       Layton "Jack" Horner, benefactor of libraries, librarians and lovers of books died Saturday, September 8, 1990 in his home in Safford, Arizona.       Layton Horner was born in rural Towanda, Pennsylvania seventy-five years ago, the third of eight children. His father, Ludwig, a German immigrant baker, married a Pennsylvania German farm girl, Irene Lander.       While in Pennsylvania. Horner early acquired the skills and love of baking, reading, football, and track. Motivated to read and to participate in sports by teachers, one of whom he visited in a nursing home as recently as two years ago, Layton took honors throughout grade school, junior high, and high school.       As a freshman university student, Horner attended Rice University in Houston, Texas on a scholarship, working as a parking lot attendant for expenses while waiting tables in a hotel restaurant for his meals. At Rice he actively participated in track. He began his sophomore year at Bethany Lutheran College in West Virginia when offered a track coach position there. Horner graduated from Bethany Lutheran receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.       Horner participated in the 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games as a member of the track team and as torchbearer for the Olympics.       He obtained a Master's degree in 1938 from Yale Divinity School where he met Saburo Matsuyama of Kyoto, Japan his roommate and lifelong friend. This friendship initiated his passion for the culture of Japan and the Japanese people. Between 1938 and 1942, Horner worked as an assistant director of an orphanage and as sports director for Camp Sagamore in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, and as a bookkeeper for a mine on the northern slopes of Colorado. He also served a director of St. Christopher's Orphanage in Pennsylvania.       During World War II, Horner served with the U.S. Navy on the East Coast of the United States, and in Alaska and Japan. In 1946, he married Marion Johnson in Bremerton, Washington.       While stationed in Japan, Horner helped implement a decentralized, reformed education system throughout the country. As eduction chief of a combined civilian and U.S. military team, he helped establish local school boards in many areas. He also directed deliveries of protein supplements to the Japanese children during the postwar period which kept many children from starving. He acted as temporary U.S. Governor of the Paluan Islands while on his pacific tour of duty with the Navy.       Returning to Pennsylvania after military service, Horner bought and sold farms. He soon rejoined the Navy for a life career serving in the Philippines, and acting as U.S. history professor and track coach at the United States naval Academy. He also served as a naval intelligence officer. Retiring from the Navy to Pennsylvania, Horner for a brief time headed the York, Pennsylvania Historical Society.       Leaving Pennsylvania, he began graduate school at Denver University majoring in Oriental Studies. Shortly after, he transferred to the University of Arizona, where he completed his doctorate in Oriental Studies in 1973. Horner then obtained a Fullbright Scholarship at Oxford. He taught oriental and middle eastern studies at North Carolina, and Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma, Washington. He also led summer college teaching tours in Latin America and China. To the end of his life Layton Horner provided a monthly stipend for an aged Chinese scholar who had been punished during the Chinese cultural revolution.       Throughout his naval and teaching career, he maintained his ties with Japan intermittently living there during those years. Horner and his dear friend Saburo established the International Student Exchange Service, with Layton acting as chairman. The organization has financially aided U.S. exchange students to teach English in Japan while providing Japanese students with the opportunity to study in the United States.       All through his life Horner contributed scholarships to individual youngsters and to colleges such as Rice, Bethany, Yale and the University of Arizona. Horner also donated his private collection of Japanese prints and dolls to Rice University Art Museum.       Horner wrote three books on Japanese-U.S. relations which show cultural similarities as well as differences between the United States and Japan through the use of historic incident. Two currently are in print: The Japanese and the Americans and On Both Sides of the Pacific. The third book is still in galley form at this time. Horner had recently begun his fourth book on Japan and the United States.       One of his most recent projects involved writing the history of the Mt. Graham telescope project located above Safford, Arizona. He and his wife, Marion, have donated their home in Safford to the University of Arizona Mt. Graham astronomy project.       Perhaps one of the most constructive contributions made to better relations between Japan and the United States has been the establishment by Layton Horner of the professional librarian exchange program between Japan and the state of Arizona. The program is administered through the AsLA Horner Japanese Exchange Committee under the direction of Dr. Edward P. Miller. Cathy Chung of Phoenix Public Library was the first Arizona exchange librarian, and Carol Elliott of the University of Arizona Law Library will begin her exchange program in October 1990. In 1989 Junko Noumi came from Japan to the Phoenix area as a Japanese exchange librarian. Working within the libraries of the host country, these librarians share and contrast new ideas concepts and working methods of the libraries.       One of Layton Horner's goals in instituting the library exchange program was to encourage the development of strong Japanese public support for the library system and a library association in Japan. Two splendid spin-offs from the Horner scholarship program have been the initiation of the ASLA International Librarianship Roundtable and the spring 1990 visit of 15 Japanese librarians to Arizona. They were exposed to many types of Arizona libraries and librarians special, public and university and to various individuals and families in the southwestern United States. In 1989, Horner established a similar library exchange program in Oregon.       The library world finds itself immensely richer through Layton Horner's gift of creating and maintaining networks of people and of institutions whose aims are to expose more people to the book, its functions; the recording of history, ideas, concepts poetry and literature of man: and to the book's eternal physical beauty. We will all miss Layton Horner. Possessed of a curious mind, open to experiences, a willingness to share and to commit himself, he created bonds among people. In our minds, Layton Horner will live forever. His legacy carreis the torch of knowledge.       Earlier this year, Layton and Marion Horner were elected to a honorary membership in the Arizona State Library. A plaque will be awarded in November at the Annual Conference in Phoenix. Bundy, Winifred J. (1990, September). Retracing: A Memorial Layton Horner 11/25/14 - 9/8/90. ASLA Newsletter, 4-5. Tribute III Remember Layton Horner? By William Cooper Click on image for full size scan REAL-LIFE Children on one of the Caroline Islands line up for a daily ration of orange jouice and vitamin pills, provided by the Navy. The chain of islands, stretching more than 1000 miles across the Pacific, now is under the governorship of a Pittsburgher, Layton Horner.