We understand that an announcement of hour examinations to take place on Friday or Saturday of this week, has been made in some courses. If these hour examinations are given for the purpose of detaining students in Cambridge, we deplore the motives of the instructors. If they are given with no such intention, we would request, in behalf of the men in the courses, that the time be changed to an earlier date. There are many men who, usually faithful in attendance at the lectures, are accustomed to leave college a few days before the expiration of the term. This enables them to reach home a few days before Christmas instead of at Christmas Eve. There are but few men who cannot as well spare these last few days from study; an hour examination compels them to loaf around Cambridge, thinking of home until they have satisfied their own consciences and the exactions of the instructors. We hope that all such instructors will bear this in mind and give those students who live at some distance from Cambridge the same chances as our Boston friends.