My earlier comment about the Netziv shutting down the Volozhin yeshiva rather than acquiescing to the governmental demands on secular studies is entirely accurate according to any version of the story. Read my words carefully. (Additionally, R. Baruch Epstein, who wrote the original book that Artscroll translated, was a bookeeper and a director of a tzedaka fund in NY; he wasn’t a godol or even a pulpit rabbi. His works are interesting and perhaps have some historic value, but they are not Toras Moshe. They do have errors and what is being cited from here from his book may well be one of them.)
In any event, learning secular history, arts, social studies, geography, etc., is not something yeshivas taught or that Jewish children learnt before, during or for a thousands years after the churban Beis HaMikdash.