INSULARITY 
241 
INSULARITY. 
15Y THE REV. H. H. SLATER. 
■ Cx/ - 
(Continued from page 220.) 
I hardly know to wliat to attribute this scientific insularity. 
Perhaps to the in-bred Conservatism with which most 
Englishmen are so profoundly imbued—however much they 
might be inclined to resent the imputation from a political 
point of view. But it says very little for us as a scientific 
nation, if we have not been able to emancipate ourselves 
from the trammels under which Gilbert White was compelled 
to study the natural history of Selborne a hundred years ago 
—if the times have marched, and foreign nations have 
marched with them, but our “scientific frontier” remains 
where it was. 
And, when we come to look at the question in all its 
bearings, we must see what advantages we have over the rest 
of the world. Our scientific horizon might have been 
exnected to have been such a broad and wide one. For we 
have colonies dotted all over the world, and countrymen 
resident in every part of the globe. On British soil the sun 
never sets. We might make our expatriated countrymen 
such numerous and useful contributors to our scientific 
knowledge, it might be thought, but in how wofully few cases 
is this a reality ! It is a saddening reflection, but I am afraid 
we cannot gainsay its truth, that an Englishman stationed 
abroad lands at his destination with a fixed resolve to 
imagine, by a species of conventional fiction, that he is still 
resident at home. Excepting as far as his changed sur¬ 
roundings minister to his tastes from a strictly sporting point 
of view, his main object in his spare time seems to be to 
maintain a little England about him. As a rule he ignores 
the natives, except from the point of view of a political, 
commercial, or sporting adjunct, and his life abroad appears 
to bespeak his feelings thus :—“ I am obliged to be out here, 
on account of my profession or business, but I wish it to be 
distinctly understood that I had much rather be at home ; 
and life here will only be so far endurable, as I can approxi¬ 
mate it to that I have left behind me in England; I will 
therefore jealously stick to my tennis lawn, my cricket ground, 
and my race meeting, and I will have my polo and pic-nics 
and dinner parties after the British pattern. The country 
may be pretty enough, but I must have something to do. 
