 Anderson’s influence extended beyond the confines of the academy. One of Anderson’s students, a young man from the Pacific island of Tonga, Futa Helu, later claimed that John Anderson’s realism had revolutionised his thinking, particularly with reference to the notion of “tapu” or the sacred, as the cover-up for the special demands of the ruling class in Tonga. Returning to Tonga in the early 1960s, he founded the Atenisi (Athens) Institute as an independent high school based on the ideals of Greek philosophy. He added “Atenisi University” in 1975, where the philosophical thought of Heraclitus as interpreted by Anderson became the backbone of philosophy courses. Following Anderson’s example of public engagement, Helu is credited as one of the intellectual architects of the democracy movement in Tonga (Keith Campbell, personal communication).