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The excerpt below is from the General Introduction to Tuskegee and Its People by Booker T. Washington:

Institutions, like individuals, are properly judged by their ideals, their methods, and their achievements in the production of men and women who are to do the world's work.

One school is better than another in proportion as its system touches the more pressing needs of the people it aims to serve, and provides the more speedily and satisfactorily the elements that bring to them honorable and enduring success in the struggle of life. Education of some kind is the first essential of the young man, or young woman, who would lay the foundation of a career. The choice of the school to which one will go and the calling he will adopt must be influenced in a very large measure by his environments, trend of ambition, natural capacity, possible opportunities in the proposed calling, and the means at his command.

In the past twenty-four years thousands of the youth of this and other lands have elected to come to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute to secure what they deem the training that would offer them the widest range of usefulness in the activities open to the masses of the Negro people. Their hopes, fears, strength, weaknesses, struggles, and triumphs can not fail to be of absorbing interest to the great body of American people, more particularly to the student of educational theories and their attendant results.

Why does Washington think thousands of young people have attended Tuskegee Institute since it opened?

They wanted to improve the economic situation of the black people.
They desired to become businessman and property-owners.
They felt a need to demonstrate the intelligence and reliance of the black people.
They sought receive training in useful, industrial activities.

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Final answer:

Booker T. Washington attributed the high attendance at the Tuskegee Institute to its practical curriculum focusing on industrial education, which he believed was essential for the self-improvement and economic stability of the African-American community.

Step-by-step explanation:

Booker T. Washington believed that thousands of young people attended the Tuskegee Institute because they desired an education that was practical and directly applicable to their lives. He advocated for an institution that judged by its achievements in producing men and women equipped to meet the needs of their community and build honorable and enduring careers. Washington felt that the Institute's curriculum of industrial education, focusing on practical skills like agriculture and carpentry, was critical to the self-improvement and economic stability of the African-American community.

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