<textarea> Tag Is Not Accepting Php Variable for display, although Input tag does accept it

I have a single page template which has a Form on it. Logic is to check for a valid Querystring and place the variables accepted from a form back into the form and re-display this form with error or acceptance messages. I'm sure everyone here has done this a million times.

The Form accepts data from a user for First name, Last name, email address, and message-body named 'note_wide' then re-displays the values into the Form, but for some reason, I can't get the value to display into a Textarea.
Sample of the php code is as follows: first the good one:

<input type="blah" etc... value=" <?php echo &_POST['email'] ?>" />

The one that doesn't work is the same use of the php string being echoed except using the Textarea tag instead: example:

<textarea type="blah" etc... value=" <?php echo &_POST['note_wide'] ?>" />

The etc includes name, class and other stuff which all appears to work for the 'good' Input tag. Is it only because the php string is being echoed to a <textarea> that this is a problem???

Any ideas about how to fix it?

The textarea tag does not use a value attribute. Instead you should place you contents between a start and end tag. Like this:

<textarea type="blah" etc... value="><?php echo &_POST['note_wide'] ?></textarea>

Bingo, Thanks for that. Sometimes after staring at the problem for too long, you can't see the simple things. Works excellent now. Thanks again.