When I arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to begin graduate studies in Italian literature at Harvard, the first order of business was to find housing.  However, because I flew into Boston on a Saturday afternoon, I forewent apartment hunting the next day and dutifully attended Sunday services at the Cambridge 2nd Ward of the LDS Church in Longfellow Park. There, as providential luck would have it, I learned that Mrs. Lenore Friedrich, who lived at 14 Hawthorne Street across from the church’s meeting house, wanted a trustworthy Latter-day Saint to live on her third floor. She needed someone to be available to help her husband should he require assistance in the night.  I interviewed for the position and was chosen. That is how I became acquainted with Harvard Professor Emeritus of Political Science Dr. Carl J. Friedrich, the son of renowned professor of medicine Paul Leopold Friedrich (inventor of the surgical rubber glove) and his aristocratic wife (a Prussian countess of the von Bülow family). That was also how I was introduced into a world of educated and social elites that previously I had only read about.  What is more important, that is how I found, in retrospect, my first Harvard mentor–someone who was neither a professor nor a professional teacher.

“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche”: That was the Chaucerian epigraph that opened one of  Professor Friedrich’s thirty-one authored volumes that I was allowed to peruse.  (It was also the book that he presented to me as a gift.)  I had access to his entire book collection, which was housed in library-style bookshelves on all four floors of the house, from the basement to the third floor where my bedroom and small bathroom were located.  Fluent in German (his native tongue), French, and English, Professor Friedrich had lectured around the world, helped write Germany’s constitution after World War II, and mentored such students as Henry Kissinger and John F. Kennedy.  At the time of his retirement he was regarded as one of the leading political scientists in the world. One of his daughters married the son of Lord and Lady Gombrich, who displaced me on the third floor the following spring when Lord Gombrich came to Harvard to receive an honorary doctorate for his pioneering work in art history. Another child was senior editor of Time magazine. I once answered the door to find the chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico standing there and wishing to pay homage to the great Professor Friedrich, who was not home at the time.

Dr. Friedrich exemplified the ever-learning scholar.  Even as his physical health and mental faculties declined, he spent his days reading and reflecting on current and past events.  Nevertheless what I wish to emphasize is that it was Mrs. Friedrich, even more than Professor Friedrich, who became my guide and taught me as a graduate student the actual ropes of how to become truly educated.

First, she provided me with copies of the subscription notices and information on upcoming concerts and plays, recitals and operas, ballets and lecture series; and she did so with the expectation that I would make time in my busy graduate school life to attend as many of these extracurricular activities as possible.  Some events were free of charge, and, she reminded me, there were often discounts for students. So I immersed myself to the extent my time and budget allowed in weekly cultural events.  I heard Mstislav Rostropovich teach a memorable master class in cello to Harvard undergraduate Yo-Yo Ma. I met Margot Fonteyn and asked the great ballerina to autograph her autobiography for the young woman who later became my wife.  I listened to Beverly Sills speak about the highs and lows of her operatic career and had my photograph taken with her.  I attended rehearsals of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and performances of the Early Music Ensemble, the Cambridge Court Dancers, the Loeb Theater productions, various classic film series, and Sarah Caldwell’s Boston Opera Company.  These were not things I had gone to graduate school planning to do with any regularity; these were things that Mrs. Friedrich insisted that I do on a consistent basis in addition to my curricular work.

In addition, Mrs. Friedrich would watch PBS specials and quiz me about what I knew about this or that topic.  She was intrigued by Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, based on Darwin’s second book on evolution; she even purchased a copy of the book, based on the BBC series she watched, as a gift for me.  Although in her late 70s, she was very active in a women’s book club in Boston and diligently prepared for her monthly meetings to discuss the assigned book. She loved reading about early feminist authors and made sure that I knew that women authors deserved as much scholarly attention as did male authors.  What is perhaps most notable, Mrs. Friedrich taught me the value of making connections, not just with new ideas but with new and interesting people. I was not to be timid about approaching so-called “important people” and asking them questions.  She encouraged me in my study of things Italian by introducing me to her friend Mathilde Valenti Pfeiffer, a native of Italy who had married a Harvard professor and become a patron of things Italian.  It was Signora Pfeiffer who said, after learning from Mrs. Friedrich that I was engaged to be married, “for your honeymoon you may have my apartment in Florence on the Arno River; it’s in Borgo San Iacopo, just down from the Ponte Vecchio. It has a wonderful view of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Giotto’s Campanile, but I never go there in the summer time.”  I accepted her gracious offer, and the summer spent in her luxury flat studded with antiques is worthy of a separate blog.

What I learned that first year in Cambridge is that it’s not only what one knows or learns from books or lectures but whom one knows that can make a major difference in achieving a well-rounded education.  Reading and learning from books are basic components of any good education, but on that foundation must be built a culture that exposes one to the much broader range of the the liberal and performing arts as well as the sciences.  Today, via the wonders of the internet, students–indeed, anyone–can be exposed to performances of all the great conductors, artists, dancers, actors, and singers; students can listen to lecturers by the greatest scientists and scholars. Nonetheless students who would achieve the greatest education must also actively seek mentors who will teach them how to make other connections and acquire other experiences, whether they be one-on-one with key individuals or in internships or other settings.  I found an unexpected mentor in Mrs. Friedrich, someone who sought my help but ended up giving me far more assistance than I ever rendered to her husband or to her. My thanks to her is long overdue, but it’s a gift that I wish to render this Christmas season to her memory.

End of Blog #2 (12 December 2016)