Christians and Pagans learning together

I'm right with Marrou when he writes that many will be shocked to learn that early Christians didn't have their own school system.

As someone who went to both a Catholic elementary and high school, this revelation is particularly interesting simply because the biggest difference between separate schools and their public equivalents then was the inclusion of a specifically Catholic bent to assemblies, health classes, and other such sessions that were more about discussions (as it were) than the delivery of facts. I imagine that here and now in 2013 classes about religion (even if just a section of social studies or history curricula) can be found in public and separate schools alike.

In the late Roman Empire (which I'll just consider the Empire post-Christ, for convenience's sake), though, this lack of a separate school system is interesting because it puts Christians and non-Christians together in a very fundamental institution. Of course, religious and moralistic training were, even in the minds of the fathers of the early Church, the duty of the family rather than some teacher. But even that says something that seems quite alien from the modern world.

For, placing the onus of religious education onto parents suggests that religion wasn't as public a matter then as it is now. Sure, there were festivals and holidays that would have hosted parades and plays and public events, but in the day to day lives of people the fact that Christians and non-Christians were educated together with no real alarm being raised (though maybe this is just because the late Roman Empire had no FOX News equivalent) suggests that when it came to individual, public displays of religion they were more subtle than ornate cross necklaces or bible-quoting t-shirts. People, at least perhaps, tried to show the morality that they learned from their beliefs not through symbols and billboard-esque displays but simply through their mundane, daily actions and reactions to the world around them.

Perhaps the practice of leaving alternative religious education (which Christian education would have been then) to the family was regarded in some quiet way as the proper thing. And that's just what those in power in the late Roman Empire sought. After all, the ever-cherished practice of rhetoric had begun to falter, and when people cannot speak properly it was firmly believed that they could neither think nor act properly. So as long as those Christian pupils learned their rhetoric well, perhaps they were a sign of some sort of resurgence.

Or, maybe the reason for separate Christian schools being a rarity in the late Roman Empire is simply that Christians and the rest of those in said Empire got along fine, as Candida Moss argues in The Myth of Persecution.