Princeton's academic facilities were already cramped and aging in 1905 when Woodrow Wilson introduced the preceptorial system. The preceptorial system, predicated on the close interaction of students and professors in small group settings, placed heavy demands not only the faculty -- Wilson hired 45 new preceptors to handle the load -- but also on the infrastructure of the campus. Lecture halls were too large and too few, and professors' offices were too small and too few. Also, the library had very few seminar spaces.

Particularly strained was Dickinson Hall, a High Victorian Gothic structure built in 1870 where most of the classes in the humanities, literature, and social sciences were held.