Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools.
The ordinance was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. These sections could then be subdivided for re-sale by settlers and land speculators. Land was to be systematically surveyed into square townships, 6 mi (9.7 km) on a side, each divided into thirty-six sections of 1 sq mi (2.6 km 2) or 640 acres (260 ha). After he died in 1789, responsibility for surveying was transferred to the Surveyor General. The initial surveying was performed by Thomas Hutchins. The Land Ordinance established the basis for the Public Land Survey System. The 1785 ordinance laid the foundations of land policy until passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. The Ordinance of 1785 put the 1784 resolution in operation by providing a mechanism for selling and settling the land, while the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 addressed political needs. However, the 1784 resolution did not define the mechanism by which the land would become states, or how the territories would be governed or settled before they became states. The land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River was to be divided into ten separate states. The earlier Land Ordinance of 1784 was a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson calling for Congress to take action. The Ordinance set up a survey system that eventually covered over three-quarters of the area of the continental United States. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785.
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