This paper examines notions of civic participation taught at and instilled by the American School for Girls (ASG) and its teachers in Beirut, Lebanon, during and immediately following the French mandate period. The ASG, founded in 1835 under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.’s (PCUSA) Syria Mission, was the flagship of American educational institutions for girls in Lebanon. The period 1919-1951 was marked by significant changes at both the mission and national levels. For the Mission during this period, the PCUSA and its missionaries debated the purpose of its educational mission and saw greater diversity in their schools’ student bodies and an increasing number of the teaching staff hired from the local population; at the national level, Lebanon moved from Ottoman province to colonial possession to independent nation-state. What, then, did these changes in the institutional and national arenas mean for the education the students received in the ASG? Making use of the PCUSA’s mission archival records housed in the United States and Middle East and institutional records of other local schools, I argue that while the message of civic participation was often steeped in the language of Protestant Christianity, the changing political realities and demands of students and teachers meant that mission education came to serve increasingly secular, civic educational ends. The result was that the ASG played an important role in notions of civic participation and citizenship among its graduates. Ultimately, this paper examines the complex relationship between colonial institutions and local realities and the individuals who shape and are shaped by both.