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At the end of 1954, the psychiatrist Jean Oury collected in a sixty-page manuscript the experience of his two-year period at the Medico-Pedagogical Institute of Herbault (Loir-et-Cher, France). This work was marked by Oury’s close and unique collaboration with his brother Fernand, a teacher and the future founder of institutional pedagogy. Hence, the manuscript contains many ideas and concepts that stand at the crossroads of institutional education and psychotherapy, especially around the issue of punishment, a true marker of the state of microsocial dynamics. This article offers a detailed commentary on the chronicle of Herbault and the full text of the reflection on punishment.