The other statutory body attached to the Department has a significance and potential importance in strange contrast to the humble place it occupies in the statute book.  The Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, has, like many other Acts, a part entitled ‘Miscellaneous,’ in which the draughtsman’s skill has attended to multifarious practical details, and made provision for all manner of contingencies, many of which the layman might never have thought of or foreseen.  Travelling expenses for Council, Boards, and Committees, casual vacancies thereon, a short title for the Act, and a seal for the Department, definitions, which show how little we know of our own language, and a host of kindred matters are included.  In this miscellany appears the following little clause:—­

     For the purpose of co-ordinating educational administration there
     shall be established a Consultative Committee consisting of the
     following members:—­

     (a.) The Vice-President of the Department, who shall be chairman
     thereof;

     (b.) One person to be appointed by the Commissioners of National
     Education;

     (c.) One person to be appointed by the Intermediate Education
     Board;

     (d.) One person to be appointed by the Agricultural Board; and

     (e.) One person to be appointed by the Board of Technical
     Instruction.

Now the real value of this clause, and in this I think it shows a consumate statesmanship, lies not in what it says, but in what it suggests.  The Committee, it will be observed, has an immensely important function, but no power beyond such authority as its representative character may afford.  Any attempt to deal with a large educational problem by a clause in a measure of this kind would have alarmed the whole force of unco-ordinated pedagogy, and perhaps have wrecked the Bill.  The clause as it stands is in harmony with the whole spirit of the new movement and of the legislation provided for its advancement.  The Committee may be very useful in suggesting improvements in educational administration which will prevent unnecessary overlapping and lead to co-operation between the systems concerned.  Indeed it has already made suggestions of far-reaching importance, which have been acted upon by the educational authorities represented upon it.  As I have said in an earlier chapter when discussing Irish education from the practical point of view, I have great faith in the efficacy of the economic factor in educational controversy, and this Committee is certainly in a position to watch and pronounce on any defects in our educational system which the new efforts to deal practically with our industrial and commercial problems may disclose.