How important is the character "Pickering" in Pygmalion? Does he help to disprove Higgin's theory about class distinctions and the gaps between people?

Although
Professor Higgins is determined to turn Eliza Doolittle into a lady of quality, it's actually
Colonel Pickering who starts off this Cockney flower-seller's remarkable transformation by
treating her like a lady long before she becomes one. On that first day she rocked up at Wimpole
Street, as Eliza later reflects, Pickering called her "Miss Doolittle," something she
simply wasn't used to. As she freely admits, it was from then on that she started to respect
herself.

In that sense, one can see Pickering as a foil for Higgins, in that
he highlights certain aspects of the Professor's character traits, most of them thoroughly
disagreeable. Higgins, despite hailing from the same social background as the Colonel, most
certainly does not treat Eliza with anything like the same degree of respect. On the contrary,
he sees her as nothing more than a lower-class harridan, pulled out of the gutter to be the
guinea-pig in his latest brilliant experiment.

In his respectful treatment of
Eliza, Colonel Pickering shows us that it is possible to be a member of the social elite without
treating the lower orders like dirt. If only Higgins would learn this
lesson.