In January 1925, Professor Naylor announced that he would retire in the spring. The "vacation" was a long time coming-- for 34 years, Naylor had taught two or three (and sometimes four) classes a semester without a leave of absence. In his own words: "I have a bad case of science indigestion... Now I will have a chance to get some ideas out of my system." As professor emeritus of physics, Naylor continued to maintain an office/laboratory in room 8 of Minshall Lab for several years after his retirement. When he finally said goodbye to DePauw in 1930 (he spent the last years of his life with his daughters in Arkansas), he left two gifts in parting: his collection of hand built apparatus, and his entire 500-volume library of physics and mathematics textbooks. (A number of these books have been lost over the years. Those that remain can be found on the shelves of the McKim Observatory library, or in storage in the Science Center. Some of Naylor's books date back to the 1850's and are today very rare, although one of the most valuable--a 1731 edition of Newton's Optics-- has disappeared from the collection.)

In his time, Naylor was one of Indiana's most prominent physicists. He was a founder and president of the Indiana Association of Physics Teachers; he was also present at the organizational meeting of the Indiana Academy of Sciences, later becoming a fellow of that society. Perhaps Naylor's greatest professional honor was his 1907 election to membership in the American Physical Society, which in those days had a total national membership of only about 50.

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