Competition destroys cooperation, and in striving to prove ability to reach an equal standard in competition, the wider and more lasting interests which are at stake may be lost sight of, and in the end sacrificed to limited temporary success.
The success of girls in the field of mathematics is, in general, temporary and limited, it means much less in their after life than in that of boys.

For the few whose calling in life is teaching, mathematics have some after use; for those, still fewer, who take a real interest in them, they keep a place in later life; but for the many into whose life-work they do not enter, beyond the mental discipline which is sometimes evaded, very little remains.

The end of school means for them the end of mathematical study, and the Complete forgetfulness in which the whole subject is soon buried gives the impression that too much may have been sacrificed to it.

From the point of view of practical value it proves of little use, and as mental discipline something of more permanent worth might have taken its place to strengthen the reasoning powers.

The mathematical teacher of girls has generally to seek consolation in very rare success for much habitual disappointment.
The whole controversy about equality in education involves less bitterness to Catholics than to others, for this reason, that we have less difficulty than those of other persuasions in accepting a fundamental difference of ideals for girls and boys.