This study was presented at a symposiun held in the University of Florida, in 1992, as a hommag to professor Frank Sherwood, whose professional life was dedicated to the teaching of public administration. The article's main focus is a retrospective analysis of the dilemma proposed by the concept of "administrative reform" that pulls out from the early works of the United states Civil Service Commission, adopted in Brazil by the Dasp, the an existing specialized administrative agency, and by the teachers who followed the agency's theoretical orientation. The study goes on arguing that the attempts of administrative reform made along those lines displayed some aspects of a "Sorelian myth", that is, they existed ideally, provided a framework for action, goals for the policy, but stayed as an incomplete task or even as a never attempted one, as concerns their basic propositions. This work explores the central lines of the significant debate going on about the real possibilities of the subject, when in the late '50s and early '60s the EBAP became the center of academic discussions on  the matter, being then outstanding the role played by Frank Sherwood and the group of teachers from the University of Southern California who had come to Brazil to collaborate with EBAP in the solution of the problem, as well as in the formation of Brazilian teachers duly prepared to face the challenges posed by the Country's administrative modernization.Retrospecto do dilema proposto por conceito de reforma administrativa oriundo dos primeiros trabalhos da Civil Service Commission, nos EUA, adotado no Brasil pelo Dasp e pelos professores seguidores de sua orientação teórica. Linhas centrais do importante debate sobre as possibilidades reais da reforma administrativa, quando a EBAP tomou-se centro de discussões teóricas sobre o tema.