This note is an invited "post-scriptum" where the 'script' is the articles in this volume. No effort will be made to summarise the articles. The intent is contemplative: to mull over how comparative education changes and, within that broad motif, to think about the role of 'our' foreigners. The mulling is self-indulgent, somewhat under-referenced--precisely because it is a mulling; but it is not inchoate. One theme that is visible in all the papers has been exaggerated, organised, and slightly extended. Within comparative education: what is 'a foreigner' and what is important about them? The article discusses the ways in which 'foreigners' are useful within university-based comparative education and, sometimes, of major importance to it. Surprisingly, this motif--asking about 'foreigners' and the intersection of personal and professional (auto-) biographies--begins to raise uncomfortable questions about the sociology of comparative education knowledge. No crisp 'conclusion' is possible but a very distinguished historian, writing about the difficulties of attaining an historical perspective, illuminates how this Special Issue may be making an unusual contribution to future histories of comparative education.