[8]
Harrison's early schooling took place in a log cabin near his home,[9] but his parents later arranged for a tutor to help him with college preparatory studies.[10] Fourteen-year-old Benjamin and his older brother, Irwin, enrolled in Farmer's College near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1847.[11] He attended the college for two years[12][b] and while there met his future wife, Caroline "Carrie" Lavinia Scott, a daughter of John Witherspoon Scott, the school's science professor, who was also a Presbyterian minister.[13]
Harrison transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1850, and graduated in 1852.[14][15] He joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he used as a network for much of his life. He was also a member of Delta Chi, a law fraternity that permitted dual membership.[16] Classmates included John Alexander Anderson,[17] who became a six-term U.S. congressman, and Whitelaw Reid, Harrison's vice presidential running mate in 1892. At Miami, Harrison was strongly influenced by history and political economy professor Robert Hamilton Bishop.[18] He also joined a Presbyterian church at college and, like his mother, became a lifelong Presbyterian.