TAKEN as a whole, the proctors in examinations have, with a few exceptions, acquitted themselves so far rather creditably, - that is, compared with other years, when to judge from the unmistakable earnestness of some complaints which found their way into the College papers, their conduct did not give undivided satisfaction. Therefore we flatter ourselves that, high authority to the contrary notwithstanding, the College press is not without some appreciable influence. This year these literary policemen of ours have not conversed in tones which would disturb men outside of a radius of twenty feet, nor have they dropped the long window-stick more than once an hour on the average, nor have they even walked, two by two, past any given man more than a half-hour by the clock. This is in the highest degree praiseworthy, and we heartily congratulate them in their not altogether unsuccessful efforts at reform. But there is room for improvement; the ideal is not yet attained. Boots that squeak are a nuisance; doubly so when a proctor wears them in examination; trebly so when the aforesaid proctor determines to take his "constitutional" in said boots in said examination-room. A piteous story might be told of a man who by accident has to sit within two feet of damp, cold walls (lower Mass. last Monday, for example) in a rheumatic, backless chair, and listen to the warlike tread of the officious guardian proctor, all the while attempting - can he be blamed if he fails? - to calmly reason on the probable result of increasing population and capital, on rents, profits, and wages. With stoical indifference we accept the inevitable, but not the ??? of the proctor's boots.