SHE BARS MATHEMATICS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20455, 7 November 1934, Page 14

SHE BARS MATHEMATICS.

Why is it that the average girl fights shy of mathematics? asks a writer in ” The Queen.” Is the subject taught worse in girls’ schools than in boys', or have women a constitutional aversion to the subject? The latter should not be the case, because there are quite a number of women mathematicians who can hold their own with any man. but. as a whole, the average woman's mathematical ability is just a matter for wonder. The point, has been raised recently because of the result of the open competition for £BOO-a-year posts in the Executive Class of the Civil Service. Women secured ten out of the eighty posts offered, but not one of those successful took mathematics, which was included among the optional subjects. And yet 322 girls—all from the best public schools of the country—between the ages of eighteen and nineteen competed . The ten successful girls are eligible to become auditors of the public accounts in the Exchequer and Audit Department. or to lew surtax or death duties at Somerset House, but not one of them would attemot mathematics in her examination. There was a recent instance in the examination for the Administrative ('lass, where a successful woman candidate tackled cheerfully such subjects as General Economics. Economic History. Political Theorv. Moral Philosophy. Metaphysics and ; Logic, but at mathematics she drew the line!