tem which, with the modifications experience has introduced, has
proved to be permanently workable and which has been envied and in
several instances copied by other countries. Like almost all successful
institutions of that sort, the Land Ordinance of 1785 was not an
immediate creation but was a development out of former practices and
customs and was in the nature of a compromise. Its essential features
were the method of survey and the process for the sale of land. New
England, with its town system, had in the course of its expansion been
accustomed to proceed in an orderly method but on a relatively small
scale. The South, on the other hand, had granted lands on a larger scale
and had permitted individual selection in a haphazard manner. The plan
which Congress adopted was that of the New England survey with the
Southern method of extensive holdings. The system is repellent in its
rectangular orderliness, but it made the process of recording titles
easy and complete, and it was capable of indefinite expansion. These
were matters of cardinal importance, for in the course of one hundred
and forty years the United States was to have under its control nearly
two thousand million acres of land.

The primary feature of the land policy was the orderly survey in advance
of sale. In the next place the township was taken as the unit, and its
size was fixed at six miles square. Provision was then made for the sale
of townships alternately entire and by sections of one mile square, or
640 acres each. In every township a section was reserved for educational
purposes; that is, the land was to be disposed of and the proceeds used
for the development of public schools in that region. And, finally, the
United States reserved four sections in the center of each township to
be disposed of at a later time. It was expected that a great increase
in the value of the land would result, and it was proposed that the
Government should reap a part of the profits.

It is evident that the primary purpose of the public land policy as
first developed was to acquire revenue for the Government; but it
was also evident that there was a distinct purpose of encouraging
settlement. The two were not incompatible, but the greater interest of
the Government was in obtaining a return for the property.

The other committee of which Jefferson was chairman made its report of a
plan for the government of the western territory upon the very day that
the Virgini