I am not a champion of encouraging secular studies. I was just responding to your, myfriend, trying to push the Chasom Sofer’s shita. That shita is also kind of a horoas shaah — I wonder if the CH.Sofer ever would have said such an extreme thing if not for the onslaught of the haskola that he was trying to resist. Others did not hold like that.
The Birkas Shmuel’s p’shat in the Ramo — that secular studies are osur even for parnosa — is a shvere das yehid, opposed by most Gedolim.