Of the Meskells whose literacy was recorded, 84.3% could both read and write, 2% could read but not write, and 13.7% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 89.3% reading and writing against 78.3% 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.