gavra_at_work – “If you teach secular studies to all 1000, none of them will become a Gadol. (In practice there are quite a few counterexamples, but that is the theory.)”
As gavra_at_work himself points out, this is not even true — every person here can name a dozen undisputed gedolim who had extensive secular educations. This includes gedolei harishonim and gedolei ha’achronim ad hayome hazeh.
Moreover, your choice of citing R’ Dessler is particularly puzzling given that R’ Dessler learned in, and eventually spoke highly of, the yeshiva in Kelm. As wikipedia will tell you, this yeshiva “was unusual in the sense that it provided its pupils with a secular education parallel to their religious studies, enabling them to earn a livelihood rather than having to take up rabbinic positions.” So unless you are suggesting that R’ Dessler himself was somewhat lacking in Torah because of his secular studies education, I suggest you rethink your point.
Also, “The idea of a Yeshiva (Al Pi Rav Dessler, and what many of the “Frum” Yeshivos hold L’maase) is that the 999 should fail out so that the one who is pushed can become a Gadol.” Do you really think that if you asked R’ Dessler, or a single gadol byisroel anywhere, that they would tell you better that 999 *fail* to produce 1 gadol?!?! Since when do we not care about 999/1000 of acheinu? I’m not sure what you meant but this sounds absolutely awful — I would never speak like this with my child in mind, and I’m sure neither would you, nor any gadol byisroel.
Finally, of course it’s true that engaging in an extensive secular education will come at the expense of developing into a true talmid chachom. Learning Torah requires dedication and focus and long hours of ameilus. There is no way that a person can spend hours and hours a day doing something other than learning Torah, especially in their formative years, and expect to become a talmid chacham. However, we are not discussing an extensive secular education with hours a day of literature and history and science and social studies, but merely some basic skills that will serve boys well both in talmud torah and beyond daled koslei beis hamedrash.