Of the Mateers whose literacy was recorded, 80.3% could both read and write, 2.6% could read but not write, and 17.1% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 82.3% reading and writing against 77.8% 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.