The same praise can scarcely be given to the ideals of the other important, though minor, official class, the scribes. The Egyptian scribe belonged to a type with which we are perfectly familiar still, the type of the petty official who thinks that there is nothing in all the world so fine as petty officialdom, unless it be superior officialdom, and who looks down on all other professions with a scorn which is only equalled by his ignorance. In a land where writing was so complicated a matter, and where it so early assumed supreme importance, where also the annual inundation with its obliterating of landmarks made the possession of written records a matter of great importance, the scribe obviously had a splendid field for his work, and for the development of all his peculiar vices. It was possible for a careful scribe to climb from the humblest position to one of great dignity and power, and the Egyptian scribe never forgot that every scribe carried in his writing-case the wand of office of a potential vizier. The scribes have left us many examples of what they thought of themselves and of all other people and professions, and it may be safely said that of no other class of Egyptian do we carry away so unpleasant an impression as of that one which no doubt imagined that it was impressing its own immense superiority on the minds of all posterity. The Egyptian cherished a profound admiration for learning; but his devotion to letters was not because of the beauty of learning in itself, but simply because it was the avenue to preferment and the way of escape from the miseries of toil or the dangers of war. Both the admiration and the mercenary reason for it are expressed in the words of an ancient sage recorded for us in the Sallier Papyrus: “Give thy heart to learning and love her like a mother, For there is nothing that is so precious as learning ... Behold there is no profession which is not governed, It is only the learned man who rules himself.” The scribe saw himself, because of his possession of letters, immeasurably above all the poor creatures who had to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. He was exempt from all the pains and anxieties of the workman, and loved maliciously to contemplate them while he issued the orders which imposed further burdens on backs already heavily burdened. “The poor ignorant man, ‘whose name is unknown, is like a heavily-laden donkey, he is driven by the scribe,’ while the fortunate man ‘who has set his heart upon learning’ is above work, and becomes a wise prince.” “The learned man has enough to eat because of his learning.” Therefore, “set to work and become a scribe, for then thou shalt become a leader of men.”