ONE interesting result of the British struggle
in South Africa was a revival among English-
men of the spirit of self-examination. The unex-
pected duration and the staggering cost of the
war brought sharply home to them a realization
of national shortcomings. When every allowance
was made for the natural difficulties against which
the British troops so gallantly contended, there
remained a good deal of incontrovertible and un-
welcome evidence of defective preparation, of in-
adequate training. The War Office maps were
incomplete; the Boer positions were ill reconnoi-
tred; British officers of long experience were
again and again outgeneraled by farmers. Of the
many frank and manly endeavors to analyze the
causes of such a surprising weakness, one of
the most suggestive was made by the Hon. George
C. Brodrick, Warden of Merton College. In an
article published in 1900 he inquired whether his
countrymen may well be called, not, as formerly,

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