Interpretation rests on specialist fact but freely selects the essence for visitors

Evidence

It is obvious that there can be no such thing as interpretation unless someone, somewhere, has by diligence and professional skill ascertained a body of facts. Hearsay, legend, and guess will not do. The work of eliciting the highlights, and telling them in that necessarily brief form demanded by the limited time the visitor can be expected to devote to such an end, is the work of the interpreter, who must know the essence and depth of his subject and reveal itwithout cluttering it with the less important details. But he depends wholly upon the naturalist, the historian, and the archaeologist for that scrupulously accurate factual knowledge that is his to interpret. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 833

Categorization

• DEFINE: Tilden’s division of labor: specialists verify facts, interpreters refine them to essence — clarifies interpretation’s epistemic foundation.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Effective interpretation must engage visitors’ present anxieties, not just park facts — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 58; Interpretation lets interpreters privately reveal larger truths behind facts — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 127; Interpretation must translate scholarly findings into visitors’ lived identification — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 319 (+1 more)