She earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard Annex (later Radcliffe College) in 1892, in the same small class as astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt.

During World War I, Hart led the college's successful fundraising effort to provide an ambulance for the Red Cross in Paris.

[11] She knew Gandhi from her interest in the peace movement,[12] and was a friend to Wellesley alumnae Ying Mei Chun[13] and Mei-ling Soong.

[3][14][15] She retired from Wellesley in 1937; the following year, the school established a named chair and a lecture series in her honor.

[3] Hart became guardian of three Japanese women students in the 1910s, bringing them from Japan to the United States for schooling.