Visitors arrive for recreation yet readily accept nature’s invitation to wonder

Evidence

The National Park Service had scarcely come into existence before the need was felt for a program of interpretation. It can be called, and correctly enough, an educational program, but to call it so is to invite a misunderstanding of its true purposes. Very few persons visit the national parks to study. They do not want to take a course in botany or geology. They want to look at the spectacular displays, the flowers, the birds, the wild creatures; they want to idle, browse, inhale deeply, hike, go horseback riding, take pictures, mingle with folks doing all these things, and forget their jobs or their routine existence. … That is all they want. Rather, that is all they think, at first, they want. But almost all of them find that it is not enough. They see the eruption of the Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone; or in early summer they watch the tremendous gush of water at Yosemite Falls; or at Mount Rainier they see the avalanche fawn lilies pursuing the retreating snowbanks. These things are no longer somethingjust to look at; they are something to wonder about. The birds and the flowers ask for a little intimacy. Nature holds out a hand. There are few who do not grasp it. There are secrets. There are few who do not want to penetrate some of them. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 706

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: the interpreter’s task is to convert idle recreation into wondering intimacy — the moment nature ‘holds out a hand’ as a universal human turning point rather than an elite educational goal.
• XREF: connects to: Parks offer firsthand acquaintance with nature that books cannot supply — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 708; Parks are society’s best hope for teaching fruitful use of leisure — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 608; Nature tourism’s effortless tranquility is labor-intensive-made-invisible — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 525 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Nature tourism’s effortless tranquility is labor-intensive-made-invisible #complicates (0.72) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 525
• Wilderness wonder is a cultural state of mind, not a natural fact #responds-to (0.72) — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 78