This is a play about education. What does it imply about teacher and student? What things does Higgins intentionally teach Eliza? What does he unintentionally teach her?

Good manners (or any manners at all) were mostly associated with the upper class at this time. Shaw's position on manners is somewhat unclear; as a socialist, one would think that he would have no time for them because they are a marker of class divisions. Yet, Higgins's pattern of treating everyone like dirt--while just as democratic as Pickering's of treating everyone like a duke or duchess--is less satisfactory than Pickering's. It is a poignant moment at the end of Pygmalion when Liza thanks Pickering for teaching her manners and pointedly comments that otherwise she would have had no way of learning them.