A much-admired text, known as 'The Satire of the Trades', is said to be the work of a scribe, living during the Middle Kingdom, who appears to have written it as an 'instruction' to his son as he takes him from their home in the Delta, to become a pupil at the School of Scribes in the capital. He describes the unsatisfactory character of most of the alternative forms of available employment to his son, presumably to encourage him to persist with his studies at the school. The Satire loses no opportunity to denigrate professions other than the scribal and, in particular, mocks any employment which involves physical effort or manual labor. The fact that Dua-Khety, coming from a remote part of the country, is irremediably provincial, lends particular point to the Satire.