Of the Beares whose literacy was recorded, 88.9% could both read and write, 4.8% could read but not write, and 6.3% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 92.3% reading and writing against 86.5% of men. Bear in mind these figures include young children; the census itself only counted people aged nine and over when calculating illiteracy, on the grounds that it was unfair to label a child illiterate before they'd had a chance to learn.