There is a foreword, written by professor Snow, to the book [A mathematician's apology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology).


In the foreword, it is written some thing like the following:


"Hardy was opposed to a certain mathematical competition in the UK because he believed that such competitions destroyed real mathematics in the UK during one century." 


My question is:



> 
> What was that competition and why did he believe that the competition destroyed real mathematics for a century?
> 
> 
> 



A certain mathematical competition in the UK
Hardy's opposition was to the Mathematical Tripos (the Cambridge undergraduate mathematics degree), as it was prior to its reform in 1909, which Hardy did much to bring about.


The text of "A Mathematician's Apology", with Snow's preface, is [here](https://archive.org/stream/AMathematiciansApology/Hardy-AMathematiciansApology_djvu.txt); the relevant paragraphs are



> 
> Almost since the time of 
>  Newton, and all through the nineteenth century, 
>  Cambridge had been dominated by the examination for the old Mathematical Tripos. [...] It had only one disadvantage, as Hardy pointed out with his polemic 
>  clarity, as soon as he had become an eminent 
>  mathematician and was engaged, together with his tough ally Littlewood, in getting the system 
>  abolished: it had effectively ruined serious mathematics in England for a hundred years. 
> 
> 
> 


As for *why* Hardy was so much against it, Snow's preface gives some of the reasons. It was a system which heavily emphasised fluency in intricate calculations rather than conceptual understanding. It was also a very rigid system which was slow to incorporate new developments in the subject (particularly those originating outside Britain). Moreover, the way the examination questions were set prioritised separating the top handful of candidates, rather than testing whether candidates near the bottom end had grasped the essentials (according to the statistics quoted on the Wikipedia page, in the 1854 examination the cut-off mark for a first-class degree was about 10% of the total marks available, and the cut-off for a third-class was about 2% -- seriously!).


