the statement of the Gra that, "To the degree that one lacks any knowledge of the seven wisdoms, to that degree he will lack in understanding of Torah a hundred fold more."

In the path of the Gra it is not clear what education ought to include. In the introduction to Euclid  in Hebrew by Baruch of Sckolev [disciple of the Gra] is brought the statement of the Gra that, "To the degree that one lacks any knowledge of the seven wisdoms, to that degree he will lack in understanding of Torah a hundred fold more." But in the Middle Ages "the seven wisdoms" meant the Quadrivium and Trivium [grammar, logic, and rhetoric, while the quadrivium consists of arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry],  Rhetoric is the subject of attack in Plato's Georgias and the Ion. Georgias was a famous sophist that prided himself (like  all the sophists] of being able to convince people of anything even falsehoods. Socrates does not like that. The Gra certainly would not hold by learning that. Rather this seems to refers to the 6 books of Aristotle, the Organon. During the Middle Ages, many Rishonim held one ought to have a secular education  which would mean what today would be known as STEM fields, Science, Tech, Engineering, Mathematics.[But this would not include pseudo science like psychology]

[In the world of Litvak yeshivot, yeshiva was only for seven years==that is to go through the even basic tractates--one per year. [Three bavot: Bava Kama Bava Metzia Bava Batra and 4 Nashim: gitin kidushin yevamot Ketuboth.]