As public administration struggled to establish its identity, it was aided greatly by the progressive
reform movement that sought to raise the standards of honesty in government and to enlarge the level
of public services provided to citizens, especially in American cities. While the term has its origins
in religious concepts that argued for the infinite improvability of the human condition, rather than
ordained class distinctions, by the end of the nineteenth century it had come to mean a responsibility
of classes for one another and a willingness to use all government and social institutions to give that
responsibility legal effect.
To a large extent the movement was a reaction to Social Darwinism, Charles Darwin’s concept of
biological evolution applied to the development of human social organization and economic policy. The
major influence on American Social Darwinism was the Englishman, Herbert Spencer, who spent much