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Te Ao Hou, December 1966, Page 41

The magnitude of the contribution of the late Mr John Waititi to the advancement of his own people and to the wider community in which he played an active part has been brought more and more to notice as others endeavour to fill the gap left by his death. He has been replaced on various organizations by other people who most fortunately are proving themselves competent and willing, but it is in the more informal aspects of effort for the Maori people that his loss is perhaps most keenly felt. A measure of the breadth of his activity may be gauged by the fact that examination of his papers and records show that in the past five years he was a member of or was associated with the work of nearly 80 organizations. It is quite certain that there were many more, of which there was no record kept. An indication of his enthusiasm and dedication to a cause in which he believed is given in records of the campaign to raise funds for the Maori Education Foundation of which he was co-chairman for the Auckland region. During the height of the campaign in 1962, John delivered 96 speeches to raise funds and to explain the aims of the foundation. The ordinary man or woman who finds letter-writing an exacting duty may be excused for feeling somewhat awed by John's record of 450 letters answered during this period. The Maori language was, of course, a ruling passion. Its study was one of his official duties but, as in most things he tackled, he brought to it more enthusiasm and deeper understanding than mere competency demanded. Perhaps the most material records of his endeavours are his text books in the Rangatahi series, but in addition he was language tutor at one time or another at St Stephen's School. Queen Victoria School, Auckland University Department of University Extension, Ardmore Teachers' College, Palmerston North Teachers' College, Auckland Teachers' College and the Maori class at Auckland Prison. He was chief examiner in Maori for the school certificate examination. He found time—no one is quite sure how—to be a member of the Anthropology and Maori Race Section of the Auckland Institute with a term as president of that body, of the Inter-racial Committee, of the Auckland Regional Committee of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and of the University Maori Club of which he was president and then patron. He was vice-president of the Police and Citizens Boystown Committee and a member of the Auckland Half-million Celebrations Committee. When groups and organizations, particularly