[3] After graduating from Wellesley College in 1893,[2][4][5] where she completed the five-year course in music in only four years,[6] she returned to Boone to become a high school teacher.
[12] While "teaching advanced mathematics" at Huguenot College,[10] she earned a second bachelor's degree in 1905 at the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
[4][13] She wrote about her travels in two books with a fellow American traveler, Jennie R. White: South Africa Today (1907) and A Little Journey to South Africa and Up the East Coast (1908), both published by the A. Flanagan Co.[2][14][15][16] Returning to the US, Smith taught at San Rafael High School in California in 1908.
[18] She performed as a piano accompanist in a concert of opera music by Richard Wagner at the Hearst Greek Theatre in 1910,[19] and completed a master's degree at the university in 1911.
[22] In an incident from this time recorded by Bruce Kodish, she sold her copy of Principia Mathematica to Alfred Korzybski, having "little use" for it herself.