AAQ: False. They are claiming that the mesorah is to be just as educated today as we were 100 years ago, 250 years ago and 1,000 years ago. None of those periods included a secular studies curriculum for the masses of bochorim. It did include a highly rigorous Biblical and Talmudical curriculum. That, both then and now, is far from being your characterization of “willfully ignorant”. It is only your ideology that all our zeidas were “willfully ignorant”, and that only when we came off the boat to America and adhered to secular mandates on what to teach that Klal Yisroel became less ignorant than our forefathers.
Amir: Even those that learned a trade at a young age (which was NOT a majority at the age you cited) never stopped Limud Torah. Indeed, Limud Torah has been a lifetime commitment of Yidden throughout Jewish history.