Of the Starritts whose literacy was recorded, 86.9% could both read and write, 1.6% could read but not write, and 11.5% could do neither. Men came out slightly ahead, 92.3% reading and writing against 82.9% of women. 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.