This passed, out in the garden, on Sunday morning. On Thursday at midday the local newspaper--the _Spectator_--was delivered to its subscribers. Under a large note of interrogation by way of heading a correspondent wished to know if it really were true that in a large school in the town the greater number of the pupils had fallen into immorality? Although it was the principal himself who had said this to several hundred people, one must still permit oneself to doubt it. That he had not been misunderstood would be proved by the following quotation: "This (namely, immorality) _was the rule_, he said; _the contrary was the exception_." This contribution was not signed. It fanned the smouldering feeling to an open flame. No one spoke of anything else. There was an abject terror among all the school-girls the next day; they came up to morning prayers, pupils and teachers as well, as though they were about to be punished, and Karl Vangen was so much agitated, that he could scarcely pray. The day's work was dull and spiritless. Rendalen did not show himself. He responded in his own name in the next number (Thursday's). He said that if this misunderstanding were intentional, it was paltry; if unintentional, explanation ought at least to have been sought privately. Nothing had been said that in the least resembled this; all that was said was that the transition from childhood to maturity was so difficult a time for most that it became dangerous, and it therefore needed watchfulness. What the principal of the school had noticed was that the characters of children of that age altered, that they lost their industry, their sense of order; "that this was the rule, the contrary the exception." Could any one discover in this any such frightful suggestions as had been made? The answer was good, but it did not avail, the excitement was so great that no words could set things straight. "Why was this transition dangerous?" they wished to know, if not for the reason he now tried to evade? Just below Rendalen's answer appeared in the same number another question, signed "A Mother:" "Why was it of such great importance that little children should learn how the race is propagated?" This inquiry gave expression to a _second_ side of the scandal, which filled the town. Under this question was still another address to Herr _Real-Kandidat_, School Director Rendalen; it begged "most respectfully" to ask, if he would not allow the lecture, which he had delivered last Saturday at the new gymnasium of the girls' school to be printed. Those who had heard it might thus enjoy it again, and those who had not been so fortunate ought not to lose the opportunity of obtaining some information on so remarkable a subject: signed "A friend of sound and safe enlightenment."