Harrison attended Bedford College for two years studying Latin, History, and English Literature which she later identified as the starting-point of her intellectual activities.

The standard of work was high and there was an excellent staff, including Professor S. R. Gardiner and Miss Chessar, the remarkably successful lecturer on geography and other subjects.

Besides doing a great deal of reading, she continued her study of Anglo-Saxon, and attended courses of Lectures, in particular those given by Professor Hales on English Literature.

She wrote several short plays for her pupils to act, and some years later she made a translation of Moliere for the Gower Street School.

She made many inquiries about a suitable plot of freehold land available for building purposes, and at length she found for sale on the Hawes Road a field of four acres.

[2] After four years of rest from strain and teaching, Harrison's health was restored, and she was beginning to feel less contented with her "Hermit life," as she called it, when she heard that the post of Headmistress at The Mount School, York, was soon to be vacant.

She was naturally shy and diffident, and it was a severe ordeal to find herself suddenly set down amongst a crowd of strangers with a perplexing number of new duties and a heavy weight of responsibility.

At first the sense of loneliness and dread of failure were intense, but she gradually adapted herself to the unfamiliar surroundings; slowly she made friends with the staff, and in time began to feel that she was gaining some hold on the girls.

The hours of meals were changed to times more in accordance with the modem interpretation of the laws of health, and many wise alterations were gradually made in the curriculum; the three-term system — instead of half-years — was introduced; a fine gymnasium was built and a gymnastic mistress appointed; the garden was enlarged and the space for out-of-door games thus extended; a house was taken opposite the School-building where a Kindergarten class and a Junior School for day-pupils was established.

[2] The strain and responsibility of boarding-school life were great, and gradually Harrison's health gave way — she had had an attack of rheumatic fever in 1891-92 which had affected her heart — and after twelve years she retired in 1902 from the post of Headmistress.

There was continual intercourse between the School and Telford Terrace, and both staff and pupils took advantage of the opportunity of an occasional quiet talk with Harrison.