Dr. H. C. Bryant, the coworker referred to by Dr. Miller, became Assistant Director of the National Park Service in charge of interpretive work for all national parks. To Dr. Miller’s statement may be added Bryant’s words about interpretive work:
In the spring of 1921, through a coöperative arrangement with the California Fish and Game Commission, the National Park Service instituted a free nature-guide service in Yosemite. The aim of this service was to furnish useful information regarding trees, wildflowers, birds, and mammals, and their conservation, and to stimulate interest in the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena. The means used to attain this aim were: trips afield; formal lectures, illustrated with lantern slides or motion pictures; ten-minute campfire talks, given alternately at the main resorts of the park; a stated office hour when questions regarding the natural history of the park could be answered; a library of dependable reference works, and a flower show where the commoner wildflowers, properly labeled, were displayed. Occasionally, visiting scientists helped by giving lectures.
About this same time, a Yosemite ranger, Ansel F. Hall, conceived the idea of establishing a Yosemite museum to serve as a public contact center and general headquarters for the interpretive program. Superintendent W. B. Lewis endorsed the plan, and the old Chris Jorgenson artists’ studio was made into a temporary museum; Hall was placed in charge as permanent educational officer. The same year found a museum program under way in Yellowstone National Park, where Milton P. Skinner was made park naturalist, and in Mesa Verde National Park, where Superintendent Jesse Nusbaum organized a museum to care for the archeological treasures brought to light among the ruins of prehistoric man’s abode. Glacier, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia, and Zion quickly organized educational programs similar to those established by Yosemite and Yellowstone, and in 1923 Hall, with headquarters in Berkeley, was designated to coördinate and direct the interpretive work in all parks. Working with Dr. Frank R. Oastler, Hall in 1924 organized a comprehensive plan of educational activities and defined the objectives of the naturalist group.
In 1924, C. J. Hamlin was president of the American Association of Museums. The opportunities opened by national park museums were called to his attention by Hall, and the American Association of Museums immediately investigated the possibilities of launching adequate museum programs in the parks. In response to recommendations made by the Association and the National Park Service, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial made funds available with which to construct a fireproof museum in Yosemite National Park. This, one of the first permanent national park museums, became the natural center around which revolves the educational program in Yosemite. Even before the Yosemite museum installations had been opened to the public, demonstration of the effectiveness of the institution as headquarters for the educational staff and visiting scientists convinced leaders in the American Association of Museums that further effort should be made to establish a general program of museum work in national parks. Additional funds were obtained from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and new museums were built in Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks. Dr. Herman C. Bumpus, who had guided the museum planning and construction in Yosemite, continued as the administrator representing the association and Rockefeller interests, and Herbert Maier was architect and field superintendent on the construction projects. It was Dr. Bumpus who originated the “focal-point museum” idea.
When the museums of Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone had demonstrated their value to visitors and staff alike, they were accepted somewhat as models for future work, and upon the strength of their success, the Service found it possible to obtain regular government appropriations with which to build several additional museums in national parks and monuments. When P.W.A. funds became available, further impetus was given to the museum program, and a Museum Division of the Service was established in 1935, embracing historic areas of the East as well as the scenic national parks. It was my privilege to serve as the first head of this unit. The work of the Museum Division has expanded until there are more than one hundred small national park and monument museums and historic-house museums; more are planned for the future.
In order to stimulate balanced development of interpretive programs, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, appointed a committee of educators under the chairmanship of Dr. John C. Merriam to study the broad educational possibilities in national parks (see Wilbur, 1929). In 1929, this committee recommended that an educational branch, with headquarters in Washington, be established in the Service. It was further recommended that the committee continue to function on a permanent basis as an advisory body, “whose duty it shall be to advise the Director of National Parks on matters pertinent to educational policy and developments.”
Dr. Bryant, who since 1920 had served as a summer employee on the Yosemite educational staff and who had been a member of the Committee on Study of Educational Problems in National Parks, was made head of the new branch on July 1, 1930. Antedating the establishment of the branch by one year was the previously mentioned wildlife survey instituted in national parks by George M. Wright, who began his career in the National Park Service as a park ranger in Yosemite in 1927.
Thus it is evident that the pioneer interpretive work done in Yosemite projected its influence and its personnel into the wider fields of “nature guiding” and museum programs throughout the National Park Service. It may be shown, also, that the educational work done by the Yosemite staff has been instrumental in advancing the naturalist programs in state parks and elsewhere where out-of-door nature teaching is offered to the public.[17] Some three hundred public areas and agencies in the United States provide naturalist services modeled on the Yosemite plan. Only ten per cent of these are in the National Park System.
One of the far-reaching influences of the Yosemite naturalist department is the Yosemite School of Field Natural History, a summer school for the training of naturalists, where emphasis is placed on the study of living things in their natural environment. The school was founded in 1925 by Dr. H. C. Bryant in answer to a demand for better trained naturalists for the Yosemite staff. There was need for a training not furnished by the universities. The California Fish and Game Commission coöperated with the National Park Service in starting this school program. The staff is composed of park naturalists and the regular Yosemite ranger-naturalist force, aided by specialists from universities and other government bureaus. The last week of the field period is spent in making studies at timberline.
As the name implies, emphasis is placed on field work. The work is of university grade, although no university credit is offered. Graduates of this school are filling positions as nature guides in parks and summer camps throughout the country. Many of the naturalist and ranger-naturalist positions in the National Park Service are held by graduates of this field school.