THE AMERICAN WOMAN. 383 



lengthwise of the nervous system, but these are not represented 

 in the diagram; second, ganglionic fibers, which run from the bi- 

 polar ganglionic nerve cells in two directions, and have two ter- 

 minations, one branching within the medullary tube, the other 

 branching to form peripheral sense organs ; third, peripheral sen- 

 sory fibers, which spring from the nerve-sense cells ; that fibers of 

 such origin exist is well known, but that they enter the central 

 nervous system and there ramify, as here depicted, has as yet been 

 actually demonstrated only in the earthworm. Fifth, that all the 

 ganglionic and peripheral sensory fibers enter the dorsal zone only, 

 while all the medullary fibers make their exit from the ventral 

 zone only. 



If we can reason from the structure, we must conclude that 

 all the complicated functions of the brain depend upon four pri- 

 mary sets of functions — namely, 1, 2, and 3, the functions of the 

 three classes of nerve cells, together with their connected fibers ; 

 and 4, the function of transferring nerve impulse from one fiber 

 to another. Until physiologists and psychologists shall have 

 learned to differentiate the four sets of functions, and have in- 

 vented successful means for their separate investigation, cerebral 

 physiology is, in my opinion, likely to remain, what it has so long 

 been, a science of unsolved problems. 



THE AMERICAN WOMAN. 



By M. C. DE VARIGNY. 



IN essential characteristics — by tradition, by nature, and by 

 education — the American woman is the direct antithesis of the 

 woman of the East, of her of whom the Hitopade'sa says, "A 

 woman should be under the watch of her father during infancy, of 

 her husband in middle age, of her sons in old age, and never inde- 

 pendent." In the United States she is under the watch of no one, 

 but under the protection of all. 



If by the aid of historical documents we reconstitute the colo- 

 nial situation in America as it was in the beginning, we find the 

 man absorbed in daily work out of doors and the woman in her 

 tasks within, and equality of the sexes resulting from equality of 

 burdens and responsibilities ; then, as prosperity increases, the 

 task of the woman diminishes while the burden of the man re- 

 mains the same, and the leisure of the former contrasts with the 

 severe labor of the other. Woman's intelligence develops and 

 extends ; man's becomes concentrated and specialized, his education 

 is limited, and remunerative labor awaits him and takes him away 

 early in life. She, the equal and companion of man at the begin- 



