An experiment in leadership - The rise of student government at Philadelphia General Hospital Training School, 1920-1930

The decade of the 1920s is often considered a time of little progress in nu rsing education, but forces were at work to reform the educational and livi ng environments of hospital training schools. Responding to a variety of in ternal and external influences during the 1920s, hospital training programs found it necessary to move from a strictly authoritarian model to a strong er educational model more attentive to student learning needs and personal autonomy. This paper discusses an experiment that contributed to the needed reform.