Many of these schools, particularly those in port cities, placed emphasis on teaching navigation, although the general course work included surveying and other branches of mathematics. As the western lands were opened and the demand for surveyors increased, it is probable that many of these schools shifted their emphasis toward surveying.

One of the major training centers for surveyors in the early 1800s was the Military Academy at West Point. Graduates of the Academy supervised all government surveys during the early nineteenth century. They constituted the first group of well trained professional surveyors in this country. (Bedini, pp. 364-366).

The first text on surveying designed for the condition of land grants in the New World was Geodaesia, or the Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land Made Easie, by John Love. First published in 1688, the book had gone through eleven English editions by 1792; two American editions were published shortly after that date.